Water and Cooperation within the NIle River Basin - Inception Report (University of Khartoum)

With an area of around 3.3 million km2, the Nile River Basin covers approximately 10% of the African continent, 2% of the Earth land surface, and is considered as the longest River in the world with around 6700 km length (Mohamed and Loulseged, 2008; Ribbe and Ahmed, 2006). It extends over 11 countries in Africa including Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Egypt(Ribbe and Ahmed, 2006). Figure1 illustrates the Nile Basin boundary and the sharing countries. The average annual flow of the Nile at Aswan southern Egypt is approximately 84 BCM of which the Blue Nile contributes around 54 BCM, the White Nile around 28.5 BCM, and Atbara River around 12 BCM. About 10 BCM evaporates from the reservoir of the High Aswan Dam which results in reducing the annual yield of the Nile to 84 BCM(Blackmore and Whittington, 2008; Mohamed and Loulseged, 2008). Around 54% of the population of the Nile countries resides within the Nile Basin. The Nile population represents around 20% of the population of Africa and is expected to double by 2030 (NBI, 2012).