Ecology: Rivers Are Aging
by: Mohamed Ahmed Al-Feelabi
Many rivers and streams dry up in summer, then soon life returns to its streams with the first rainfall from distant sources and hills, so it rushes towards its estuaries, carrying fertility and growth, and the causes of life to inhabitants on their banks.
However, for a river to grow completely old, to remove its water from the face of the earth and cause plants to yearn for irrigation, is something that would rarely occur in earlier times, except over the recent climate changes, which are now threatening human life near the seas by drowning, and along river banks with starvation. The future has become gloomy in light of recurring dry seasons and high temperatures.
(Malawiya) is the last African river to record the inability to flow into the Mediterranean Sea. A Moroccan green activist Mohamed Benatta had warned of the environmental disaster threatening agricultural lands and biodiversity, referring to the natural reserve that the river flow embraces. He told (Eram News – on 15 November) that “wild animals and plants would hardly survive.”
Farmers near the estuary asserted that the salty sea water receded across the course of the river to a range of 15 kilometers, causing damage to their crops due to the salinity of the water.
In Sudan, Wadi al-Muqaddam, southeast of the Sahara Desert, is no longer the same. It dates back to the rainy ages when it was a great lake representing a marine tongue of the Mediterranean Sea, then it began to decline and atrophy with the change of climatic conditions to become the streams of the valley as a tributary of the Nile, however, according to a recent study conducted at the University of Bahri, it was affected by the long period of drought so that it can’t flow into its destination due to evaporation and leaking into the ground.
The same thing happened to (Wadi al-Malik), whose waters come in autumn from the heights of (Anidi) in eastern Chad, fed by several great valleys such as (Wadi al-Tina, Karanoi, and Major), running during its journey that extends to 1,200 kilometers in North Darfur to flow into the Nile River. in the Northern state.
As for the stream (Abu Habil), which in the past was called the parent river (the Nile), is also no longer embracing its father, and contented itself with feeding one of the largest lakes in North Kordofan (Tardat al-Rahad), whose water increases and decreases according to the water flow from the small creeks in the region.
And if what happened to the Moulouya River is due to the scarcity of rain, excessive consumption, and mismanagement, then negligence and the management of the water resource, and the absence of water harvesting strategies, with the massive attack on forests around the riverbeds, has increased the drought in several regions. Or it is (drought), which is defined as a state resulting from a decline in the annual rainfall rate for a long period, as rivers, wells, and ponds dry up, and water resources decrease.
Those interested in weather conditions cannot predict the occurrence of drought, but it is always possible to do what is positive, such as setting up water harvesting projects and restoring vegetation around the sources and riverbeds to invite rain.