White Nile

The White Nile tributaries and riparian States

The White Nile is a source of the river Nile, the longest river in Africa. It rises in the mountains of Rwanda and Burundi, then flows through Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan and joins at Khartoum in Sudan, the Blue Nile to the Nile.

The White Nile receives its water from the humid tropics of Africa and means to a small extent on the Sobat also from the humid tropics of East Africa.

The White Nile opposite the Blue Nile, a more than five times as large catchment area, with around 3800 kilometers more than 2.5 times length, and is therefore often considered despite lower water levels as the true Nile. Its source river above Lake Victoria is nearly 900 km long, between Lake Victoria and Khartoum, he has a length of 2870 km.

• 3.1 Victoria Nile, Kyoga Nile and Albert Nile
• 3.2 Bahr al - Jabal
• 3.3 Bahr al - Abiad

Name

Strictly speaking, the White Nile just the name of Bahr al - Abiad (Arabic White River ) between the No-See in the Sudd and the association with the Blue Nile at Khartoum. However, in common usage, the name referred to the river between Lake Victoria and Khartoum, and often also includes the source or the rivers above the Lake Victoria.

Headwaters

The White Nile originates from the headwaters of the biggest Victoria inflows, the Kagera ( in the upper reaches also Akagera ), which in turn is fed into the high-altitude hill countries of Rwanda and Tanzania from two source rivers. They are referred to different names in the course leading source branches on the location of your source areas as:

Burundi shear flow source: Luvironza - Ruvuvu

The Ruvuvu (also Ruwubu, Ruwuwu or Ruvusu ) together with the tributary Luvironza the southernmost and longest with at least 400 kilometers source of the river Kagera and hence of the Nile; whose total length is measured over this flow path. The source of the Ruvuvu is located at about 2240 m altitude in a mountain valley basin of the eastern edge of the mountains of the East African grave breach. The Luvironza originates approximately 45 kilometers east of Lake Tanganyika between Bururi and Rutana. A first major right tributary stream surpasses him something at length, so that its source is taken as mündungsfernste source of the Nile and marked with a pyramid-shaped monument. After the confluence of the Luvironza Ruvuvu flows mainly north-eastwards and is navigable in the final kilometers. It ends after a tortuous course, which is lined by elongated ridges and swampy alluvial layer, in the Kagera.

Rwandan source river: Rukarara - Mwogo - Nyabarongo - Akagera

The Rukarara - Nyabarongo already been mentioned in the lowest race of Akagera, forms the northern and shorter, but some water-rich source of the river Kagera. The source of the headwaters, the Rukarara was found by Richard Kandt in 1898 in southern Rwanda (around 185 km further north than that of the Burundian source flow). This is also known as the Source du Nil source lies on the eastern shoulder of the grave East African Rift in about 2700 meters in the Nyungwe Forest, a major tropical mountain forest area about 40 kilometers southeast of Kiwusees. The eastward flowing Rukarara ends after 50 kilometers in the somewhat smaller, flowing northward Mwogo. After a narrow valley of the river is then called Nyabarongo (also Njawarongo ). With the confluence of the great, coming from the north from the rainiest part of the Kagera River Basin Mukungma the Nyabarongo turns abruptly to the east. The former running further north was blocked with the emergence of the Virunga volcanoes, and overall the river system has been spilled with the heaving edges of the East African Rift successively to the east. The Nyabarongo flows around later at a short distance of Rwanda capital Kigali. From there he is due navigable, as is the south of flowing, 165 -kilometer Akanyaru (also Akanjaru ). The Nyabarongo later follows the Rwandan border back to Burundi and Tanzania. The aufsedimentierende flow can arise in many side valleys niche lakes. The largest is the near-shore Rugwerosee (Lac Rweru ); From there the river either already the name Kagera (or Akagera ).

Kagera Nile

Just one kilometer below the union of the two source rivers crashes the Kagera in the Rusumo Falls ( Chutes Rusumu ) through a rocky outcroppings and bends sharply to the north. The now over 230 kilometers of navigable again border river usually flows through marshy valley and basin landscapes and passes the Akagera National Park. At the "North knee " buckled the river again at an acute angle to the east. In northern Tanzania northeastward flowing, he reached over numerous rapids after another 290 kilometers, the western shore of Lake Victoria. The catchment area of ​​Kagera ( 60,000 km ²) drains the greater part of Rwanda, Burundi half of the state, but also small parts of northwestern Tanzania. Previously, the Kagera was often not considered part of the Nile, despite its length of well over 900 kilometers and a water flow of 230 m³ / s

Sections of the White Nile

Victoria Nile, Kyoga Nile and Albert Nile

The Victoria has formed only about one million years in the flat valley between the two main branches of the East African Rift. During the dry coldest phases of Eis-/Kaltzeiten the lake could dry up. After the end of the Würm glaciation, the lake about 12,000 years ago has overflowed to the north and made ​​contact with the river system of the White Nile.

The Lake Victoria in Uganda to the north leaving the Victoria Nile is little case and Ripon Falls dammed up so high below the former Owen, that the lake level of Lake Victoria is raised slightly. Below the Bujagali rapids, the river passes through the shallow Lake Kyoga, which is a flooded tectonic subsidence trough portion. As Kyoga Nile he overcomes on a 85 km long descent, including the Karuma Falls and Murchison Falls ( also Kabalega Falls in Murchison Falls National Park located ) 350 meters and then reached in running sluggish Lake Albert. In the following section of the Nile gets its name after the addition of this Prince Consort of Queen Victoria of Great Britain named lake.

Bahr al - Jabal

From the border with South Sudan is called the river Bahr el Jabal (Arabic: mountain river; Bahr al - Jabal and Bahr el- Jebel ). According to a further range of smaller rapids slope distance of around 150 kilometers, leaving the highlands near the city of Juba. In the city of Bur he enters the swamp area of the Sudd, which extends more than 300 kilometers to the north. Here evaporate 51 percent of the Nile water, the water flow of 1048 m³ / s to 510 m³ / s decreases.

Bahr al - Abiad

Shortly before leaving the Sudd meets the Bahr al - Jabal with the coming from the left, long but low-water river Bahr al - Ghazāl (2 m³ / s) in the no-see together and from there to the Bahr al - Abiad ( White Nile ) denotes the first now continues to flow eastward. In the city of Malakal right open the unfinished Jonglei Canal and the rich, clay-colored Sobat (412 m³ / s). Then it flows northward toward Khartoum.

Association with the Blue Nile

Between Khartoum and Omdurman he joins the Blue Nile, which comes from the right (southeast) from Ethiopia. Thereafter, the current as the Nile or as Nahr an - Nīl is (Arabic: Nilfluss ) refers.

Dominance of the Blue Nile over the dammed White Nile during the rainy season (August)

The Nile at Khartoum in 1910

The confluence of the White and Blue Nile in 2010

Tributaries

Left ( west here ) tributaries:

• Bahr al - Ghazal
• Wadi al -Malik (often dry)

Rights (in this eastern ) tributaries:

• Sobat

Waterfalls

The headwaters of the White Nile runs in tectonically restless region and was subject to many changes in the recent geological past. This is reflected in the unbalanced longitudinal profile of the river with many big and small waterfalls and rapids. These include:

• Rusumo Falls ( Chutes Rusumu ) on the border of Rwanda and Tanzania
• Kuruma - rapids in Tanzania - east of North knees of the Kagera
• Ripon Falls in Uganda - ( by the Owen Falls Dam Lake Victoria flooded )
• Owen Falls in Uganda - ( by the Owen Falls Dam Lake Victoria flooded )
• Bujagali Falls in Uganda - beneath the Owen Falls dam ( overflowing dam under construction)
• Murchison Falls ( also called Kabelega Falls ) in Uganda

Water engineering interventions and conflicts of use

Located in southern Sudan wetland of the Sudd is a major obstacle for shipping dar. The decades -been intermittently under construction Jonglei canal should improve this situation and reduce outflow accelerated by the high natural evaporation losses. This would also have an extensive draining of the swamp mean with serious consequences for fauna and flora and almost impossible to estimate regional climatic effects.

Since the year reached just over 5 % of the flow below the Atbara mouth of the Mediterranean, an intensification of conflicts over the distribution of water is foreseeable. Egypt and the Sudan established in 1959 firmly in bilateral negotiations, the total yearly amount of available water of the Nile is an average of 84 billion cubic meters, of which an average of 10 billion cubic meters would be lost by evaporation and percolation. Measurements were made of the water flow rate ( approximately 2,660 m³ / s ) at the level of the old Aswan Dam. Egypt approved annually 55.5 billion m³ and confessed Sudan 18.5 billion m³. Since the Nile but has ten riparian states, most of which were not mentioned in the 1959 agreement, the result for most of the roughly 300 million river residents an undersupply, as Egypt 's water demands will if necessary by force. In the existing since 1999 Nile Basin Initiative still try to bring a partnership schemes, but the existing imbalance in which are reserved for about 88 % of water use Egypt and Sudan, while Ethiopia, from whose territory originate approximately 90 % of the flow, only a minimal use is granted, manifests itself now in a separate framework agreement between the upstream riparian countries from the year 2010 with the aim of greater self-use (Agreement of Entebbe ). Such increased use also represents the under construction Ugandan hydropower plant below the Bujagali rapids on the Victoria Nile

History

Even the ancient Romans were on the search for the sources of the huge current ( " caput Nili quaerere " in Vulgar Latin ambiguous, as well as " Find the head of Nothing " translatable. ). In the second century after the era Claudius Ptolemy wrote because of travelogues, the Nile entströme two large lakes near the equator. Near the lakes lifting up the Montes Lunae. This statement and its world map was followed by Arab and European representations of the Middle Ages.

Many African researchers have tried to find the actual source of the ( White ) Nile. In an expedition that lasted from 1821 to 1822, the Frenchman Frédéric Cailliaud reached the confluence of the Blue and White Nile. Living in Egypt Linant de Belle fund followed in 1827 the White Nile upstream, but was prevented on 13 latitude by local hostility to the further advancement. 1861 presented the Dutch researcher Alexandrine Tinne Africa in Cairo on an expedition together, but had to cancel this unsuccessfully for logistical reasons after a few months. In 1866, the British explorer David Livingstone went on expeditions to the sources of the Nile and the Congo; he said it in much further south past Bangweulusee to have found the real source but never reached. 1857 John Hanning Speke, the British went and Richard Francis Burton together on exploration of Lake Victoria: John Speke saw in him the source, Richard Burton, however, in the southern Lake Tanganyika. 1858 did John Speke, now accompanied with James Augustus Grant, again on an expedition, and they discovered 1862, the Ripon Falls in the north of Lake Victoria, which was mistaken for a source of the Nile. The source of the Kagera Nile on Burundian Luvironza corresponding to the mündungsfernsten Nile source was discovered in 1893 jointly by Oscar Baumann and Oskar Lenz, but not precisely determined. 1898 saw Richard Kandt the Rukarara source ( Rwandan source river ) in the Nyungwe Forest. Not until 1937 that the geographical location of Luvironza source of Burkhart Waldecker (1902 1964) was accurately determined. Also, the Briton Samuel White Baker and the Italian Romolo Gessi, who also went on a search, have made ​​successful expeditions.

Arab World Map, 12th century; South is up: The Nile entfließt two lakes, which are fed from springs at the foot of a mountain, and joins in a third lake.

European card " Abyssinia ," the 16th century: The Nile River and its upper tributaries entfließen lakes.

Fauna

The Nile River is inhabited by over 120 species of fish, which not many are looking for a river of this length. Endemic are about a quarter of the species, an endemic genus, there is not. The Nile valley forms no zoogeographical unit, about 75 species occur in the basin of the Niger and most of these species in other West African rivers before. About 20 living in the Nile fish species are also in the Congo Basin at home. One of the great living in the Nile fish species of the plankton -eating African osteoglossid ( Heterotis niloticus ) and the predators Großnilhecht include ( Gymnarchus niloticus ) and Nile perch (Lates niloticus ). The dither catfish are represented by two species, Malapterurus electricus and Malapterurus minjiriya. The most species-rich fish are carp family (Cyprinidae ) with 18 species and the mormyrids ( Mormyridae ) with 16 species.

Many other species were named after the river its name, such as the Nile, the Egyptian Goose, the Nile grass rat, the Nile monitor and the Nile or hippo.

Cities on the banks of the White Nile

• Rwanda Kigali

• Kampala ( Lake Victoria )
• Jinja

• Juba
• Malakal

• Kusti
• Rabak
• Khartoum ( Khartoum )
• Omdurman ( Umm Durmān )

Bridges

In Sudan, the beginning of the 20th century, the railway from Port Sudan to Khartoum and Wadi Halfa to the branch of Khartoum via Sennar and Kusti to El Obeid with the An- Nil -al- azraq bridge over the Blue Nile in Khartoum and the Kusti was railway bridge built over the White Nile.

Above Khartoum in Sudan, there are now three road bridges over the White Nile.

South of Sudan on the White Nile, there are only five fixed crossings.

Channels

• Jonglei Canal ( unfinished)