Distribution of Waters

DISTRIBUTION OF WATERS Although the geographical problems connected with the origin of the river have been solved, the Nile continues to offer problems of extraordinary interest in connection with the conservation and distribution of its waters. The energy formerly directed to explor ation has only been diverted to a closer and more scientific study of the hydrography of the river, with a view to determining how the available flow of water in its various tributaries can be most advantageously and economically protected from dissipation and wastage in the swamps of the upper river, and stored in reservoirs for utilisation as required. These studies have mostly been directed by the Egyptian Government to increasing the flow of the river in the early summer months, when its natural flow falls short of requirements for irrigation in Egypt ; it has come to be realised that the control of the Nile waters is not wholly an Egyptian question but concerns the countries higher up the river.

The Assuan, Gebel Aulia and Makwar Dams.

The origi nal Assuan dam, which was opened in 1902, was raised in height by seven metres in 1912 and the storage capacity of the reservoir increased from 1,000 million cu. metres to 2,250 million cu. metres of water. Following on Sir William Garstin's report on the basin of the Upper Nile (British Blue Book, Egypt No. 2, 1904), schemes for constructing a large reservoir on the lower White Nile by means of a dam at Gebel Aulia some 20 m. south of Khartoum, and for a canal to irrigate the great Gezira plain between the Blue and White Niles, began to take definite form about 1913. Progress with these schemes was necessarily sus pended during the World War, and in the meanwhile the increas ing tendency towards the development of an independent existence by the Sudan caused all schemes for the control of the river beyond the limits of Egypt proper to be viewed with some apprehension and mistrust in Egypt. The general position was summed up to date by the then adviser to the Egyptian Ministry of Public Works, Sir Murdoch MacDonald, in Nile Control (pub lished by the Egyptian Government in 1920), and an international commission was appointed by the Egyptian Government to report on the proposed works.

The commission reported favourably on the general scheme outlined in Nile Control, and pointed out that under a carefully considered scheme of control there was sufficient water to meet any possible developments in both Egypt and the Sudan for many years to come. Financial considerations, complicated by the political position, again led to the temporary suspension of the works and to the preparation of further reports on the irrigation programme by Mr. C. E. Dupuis, formerly adviser to the Egyp tian Ministry of Public Works (issued by the Egyptian Govern ment in 1925). The construction of the Gezira canal was then resumed by the Sudan Government, and the canal, with its great dam and reservoir, with a capacity of nearly 5oo,000 million cu. metres of water, at Makwar, near Senaar, on the Blue Nile, was completed to the extent necessary for the irrigation of 300,000 ac. in 1925, and formally opened in 1926. The Egyptian Govern ment also started preliminary work on the Gebel Aulia dam and reservoir (White Nile), with a storage capacity of about 2,500 million cu. metres of water, and is studying the scheme for the canalization of the river through the swamps, on which some pre liminary work was done between 1904 and 1913. (See DAMS; IRRIGATION.) At present work at Gebel Aulia has been suspended and the heightening of the Assuan Dam by 8 metres is under consideration.

Lake Albert.

It is further recognized that to be fully effective this canalization of the river must be supplemented by further storage works higher up the river, presumably by the conversion of Lake Albert into a reservoir, but this scheme has not yet emerged from the stage of preliminary consideration. The most recent information concerning the physical conditions and regime of the great lakes forming the basin of the upper White Nile, essential to the consideration of this project, has been collected in a report on The Lake Plateau Basin of the Nile by Mr. H. E. Hurst (published by the Egyptian Government in 1925).