{"id":7434,"date":"2020-01-14T08:13:42","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T05:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=7434"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:47","slug":"in-the-future-there-will-be-more-rain-but-less-water-in-the-nile-basin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/01\/14\/in-the-future-there-will-be-more-rain-but-less-water-in-the-nile-basin\/","title":{"rendered":"In The Future There Will Be More Rain, But Less Water, In The Nile Basin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By Ethan D. Coffel<\/strong> &amp; <strong>Justin S. Mankin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Nile \u2013 the world\u2019s longest river \u2013 runs through&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ascelibrary.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1061\/9780784481394.026\">11 countries<\/a>&nbsp;in\nAfrica and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.internationalrivers.org\/campaigns\/nile-basin\">has a basin<\/a>&nbsp;that\ncovers about 3 million sq kms, nearly 10% of the continent\u2019s landmass.\nAbout&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/atlas.nilebasin.org\/treatise\/estimated-and-projected-total-population-in-nile-basin-countries\/\">250\nmillion people<\/a>&nbsp;are reliant on the Nile\u2019s waters in Ethiopia, Uganda,\nSouth Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nearly all of the rainfall that feeds the Nile\u2019s two major\ntributaries \u2013 the Blue and White Nile \u2013 falls in the upper Nile basin, found in\nSouth Sudan, western Ethiopia and Uganda. The lower Nile basin receives very\nlittle rainfall and the countries there \u2013 Sudan and Egypt \u2013 depend heavily on\nthe Nile for water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Climate projections suggest that, by the end of the century,\nthe amount of rain in the Upper Nile basin could increase&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1029\/2019EF001247\">by up\nto 20%<\/a>. But our&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1029\/2019EF001247\">new\npaper<\/a>&nbsp;shows that, despite more rainfall, devastating hot and dry\nspells are projected to become more frequent in the Upper Nile basin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These conditions will occur simultaneously with the region\u2019s\nrapid population growth,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/atlas.nilebasin.org\/treatise\/estimated-and-projected-total-population-in-nile-basin-countries\/\">anticipated<\/a>&nbsp;to\ndouble by the middle of this century. This will increase water stress in the\nregion, irrespective of the modest rainfall increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At present, around 10% of the basin\u2019s population faces\nchronic&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/waterforlifedecade\/scarcity.shtml\">water\nscarcity<\/a>&nbsp;due to the region\u2019s seasonal aridity and the highly unequal\ndistribution of water resources. By 2040, according to our research \u2013 in a year\nwith average temperatures and rain \u2013 the number of people facing water scarcity\ncould reach 35%. That\u2019s more than 80 million people without enough water to\nfunction in their daily lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hot and dry conditions will make this worse. These\nconditions will kill crops, reduce hydropower, diminish the water available for\npeople and industry and heighten tensions over the distribution of regional\nwater resources. By 2040, a hot and dry year could push over 45% of the people\nin the Nile Basin \u2013 nearly 110 million people \u2013 into water scarcity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even without these developments, population growth would\ndrive water scarcity in the Upper Nile. But larger deficits in the amount of\nwater flowing into streams and rivers during future hot and dry years will\namplify this effect. This will leave an additional 5% to 15% of the future\npopulation in the Upper Nile basin facing water scarcity in hot and dry years. <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/in-the-future-there-will-bae-more-rain-but-less-water-in-the-nile-basin-129360\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ethan D. Coffel &amp; Justin S. Mankin The Nile \u2013 the world\u2019s longest river \u2013 runs through&nbsp;11 countries&nbsp;in Africa and&nbsp;has a basin&nbsp;that covers about 3 million sq kms, nearly&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}