The Nile River Explained in under 3 Minutes

The Nile River explained in under 3 Minutes Chapter 1: How long is the Nile? Determining rivers length is usually quite an easy endeavor. You located the mouth, walk up to its source, and count your steps along the way. For most rivers this works out just fine. When swamps and rainforests hide the source deep inside remote mountain range like it is the case for the Nile, this can get tricky though. While the Blue Nile, its major tributary has been well understood since ancient times, the main stem, also called the White Nile, has remained mystery until modern times. For the longest time, Lake Victoria was considered the source of the Nile. This however neglects the fact that the lake itself is fed by major rivers. The longest one of these, the Kagera River which itself has this tributary, this tributary and even this creek in the Rwandan mountains competing for the title of the furthest source of the river Nile. Until the scientific community settles winner however, it can be said that either of these three sources makes the Nile the longest river in the world with staggering 6695-kilometer-long course. Chapter 2: The Niles Hydrography Regardless of which headwater is determined to be the true source, the Nile starts of somewhere south of the Equator and flows all the way to the 31st degree latitude, passing one third of the northern hemisphere. Over this length, the Nile drains an area of over 3.200.000 square kilometers, representing 10% of the entire African continent. Considering these vast distances, it is no surprise that different sections of the Nile experience vastly different climates and topographies. The White Nile starts off in the in tropical wet savanna region, giving it constant flow of water year-round. New tributaries and evaporation keep the water levels in balance, until its confluence with the Blue Nile in the center of Sudan’s capital Khartoum. The Blue Nile and many of its tributaries originate the Ethiopian Highlands, which experience extreme seasonal variety in precipitation. During the wet season between May and August, they contribute over 70% of the entire discharge of the Nile with volume of 5600 m3 per second. The dry season on the other hand can see flow of as little as 2% compared to the peak and in extreme cases, can even dry out completely. These seasonal variations heavily influence the downstream life around the river Nile, bringing us to Chapter 3: Agriculture at the River Nile total of 257 million people live in direct proximity to the Nile River and for thousands of years they have worshipped and depended on the rivers water, fish stock and annual sediment flow. Especially the water from the Blue Nile carries large amounts of silt which has been eroded from the rapid streams down the Ethiopian Highlands. During the height of the wet season, the river floods the desert and delta, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of tons of fertile silt, which has been the backbone of Egyptian agriculture for many thousands of years. This delicate balance of flooding, growing and harvest which has been fundamental part of Egyptian society all the way back to the ancient empires has only recently been thrown off with the construction of the Aswan High Dam in 1962, which blocks vast amounts of sediments from transitioning, and incidentally created Lake Nasser, the 2nd largest man-made lake in the entire world.