Water Sharing in the Nile River Valley
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PROJECT GNV011 : USING GIS/REMOTE SENSING FOR THE SUSTAINABLE USE OF NATURAL RESOURCES Water Sharing in the Nile River Valley Diana Rizzolio Karyabwite UNEP/DEWA/GRID -Geneva January -March 1999 January-June 2000 Water Sharing in the Nile River Valley ABSTRACT The issue of freshwater is one of highest priority for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The Nile Basin by its size, political divisions and history constitutes a major freshwater-related environmental resource and focus of attention. UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva initiated several case studies stressing a river basin approach to the integrated and sustainable management of freshwater resources. In 1998 GRID-Geneva started a project on Water Sharing in the Nile River Basin. The Nile Valley project was set up to prepare an experimental methodology to identify the potential water-related issues in a watershed. The first stage of the project consisted of the compilation of available geoferenced data sets for the Nile valley region to be used as inputs for water bala nce modelling; and led to the elaboration of a first report1. Available georeferenced data sets have been stored in Arc/Info-ArcView. They serve as inputs for water balance modelling. General data on transboundary water sharing and on the Nile River Basin were also collected. Several international projects operating in the Nile River Valley are oriented towards Nile Basin water management, using GIS and remote sensing techniques. Therefore any continuation of the GRID- Geneva Nile River project should be linked with and integrated into one of these successful field programmes. 1 Booth J., Jaquet J.-M., December 1998. UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva - DR i Water Sharing in the Nile River Valley TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................................ I TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................................... III LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................................IV LIST OF TABLES ...............................................................................................................................V INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 1 PART I. DATA COMPILATION ...................................................................................................... 3 1 WATER PROBLEMS .................................................................................................................. 3 1.1 Water: quantity and quality............................................................................................... 3 1.2 Water issues........................................................................................................................ 6 2 NILE RIVER VALLEY................................................................................................................. 9 2.1 Generalities ........................................................................................................................ 9 2.2 Physiography .................................................................................................................... 12 2.3 Climate.............................................................................................................................. 24 2.4 Hydrology.......................................................................................................................... 26 2.5 Population ........................................................................................................................ 33 2.6 Water Resources utilisation............................................................................................. 34 2.7 Fauna and Flora.............................................................................................................. 36 3 NILE RIVER BASIN PROJEC TS ................................................................................................ 38 3.1 Basin-Wide Cooperation.................................................................................................. 38 3.2 Monitoring, Forecasting and Simulation project (MFS)............................................... 42 3.3 FRIEND/Nile Project...................................................................................................... 43 3.4 Georgia Tech –Nile Basin Management......................................................................... 44 3.5 The UNDP Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework Project ..................................... 48 3.6 FAO Nile Basin Water Resources Project...................................................................... 48 3.7 FAO Lake Victoria Water Resources Project ................................................................. 49 3.8 Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project ...................................................... 50 3.9 Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation ................................................................. 50 3.10 NileSim - Maryland University........................................................................................ 51 3.11 NILE-HYCOS - WMO ..................................................................................................... 54 3.12 Nile Basin Society ............................................................................................................ 55 3.13 Green cross International ................................................................................................ 55 4 DATA ..................................................................................................................................... 57 4.1 Generalities ...................................................................................................................... 57 4.2 DEM.................................................................................................................................. 57 4.3 Hydrological data............................................................................................................. 58 UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva - DR iii Water Sharing in the Nile River Valley 4.4 Runoff Data.......................................................................................................................59 4.5 Climate and Water Balance .............................................................................................60 4.6 Other Features..................................................................................................................61 4.7 Map Projections.................................................................................................................65 PART II. RESULTS .....................................................................................................................67 5 ARCVIEW PROJECT DESCRIPTION .........................................................................................67 5.1 Generalities .......................................................................................................................67 5.2 Starting the project ...........................................................................................................67 5.3 Project views......................................................................................................................68 5.4 Scritps ................................................................................................................................68 5.5 Tables.................................................................................................................................68 6 WATERSHED DELINEATION......................................................................................................69 6.1 General methodology ........................................................................................................69 6.2 Projection ..........................................................................................................................70 6.3 Watershed delineation......................................................................................................71 6.4 Discussion .........................................................................................................................76 7 WATER BALANCE MODELLING................................................................................................78 7.1 Soil Water Balance ...........................................................................................................78 7.2 Runoff................................................................................................................................79 7.3 Estimation of Surface Water Yield by Using a Rainfall-Runoff Function ...................79 7.4 River and Reservoir Routing Using the Rivers Model ....................................................80 7.5 Discussion .........................................................................................................................80 TECHNICAL & OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................................................81 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................82 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...............................................................................................................................83