Geology -- Egypt; Nile River; Water-supply -- Egypt
Up to the middle of July the Blue and White Niles keep increasing their
discharges steadily at Khartoum, but after that date the Blue Nile gauge
and discharge rise rapidly together, and the Blue Nile not only feeds
the Main Nile, but flows up the White Nile and arrests its discharge, so
that at Duem, 200 kilometres above Khartoum, the White Nile discharge
decreases in July and August while the Blue Nile is steadily flowing up
the White Nile valley and converting it into a reservoir for the Nile in
winter. It is only after the 15th September, when the Blue Nile has
begun to fall steadily and continuously that the White Nile discharge
really commences and reaches its mean maximum of some 2000 cubic metres
per second in October.
The mean minimum discharge of the Nile of 650 cubic metres per second at
Khartoum is obtained on the 1st May and the mean maximum of 9000 cubic
metres per second on the 1st September. Fed by the White Nile reservoir
the river falls comparatively slowly. Whether this peculiar relation of
the two rivers to each other could not be taken advantage of to increase
the supply in December, January and February, and decrease it in October
and November by means of a regulating dam built across the White Nile at
Khartoum is worthy of study.
I greatly prefer the idea of storing the flood waters of the White Nile
at Khartoum to any storage of the Albert Nile water above the junction
of the Sobat river. A regulator above the Sobat junction would store up
a very considerable quantity of water, but the quality would be very
doubtful and possibly dangerous to health.
At El Damer, south of Berber, the Atbara flows into the Nile. Dry from
January to May, the flood begins in June and is at its maximum as a rule
in the last week of August; with a mean high flood discharge of 3500
cubic metres per second. This water cannot come on to Assuân without
filling up the 200 kilometres downstream of the 6th cataract where the
slope of the Nile is gentle and the river lends itself to being used as
a reservoir. It is owing to the fact that none of the main feeders of
the Nile flow in immediately below cataracts that the rise and fall of
the Nile in Egypt, is so regular and constant. If the Sobat, Blue Nile
and Atbara all flowed into the White or Main Niles below cataracts we
should have floods in Egypt whose sudden changes of level and
fluctuations would be an unending source of danger to the country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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