Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Water resources

Future Nile river flows

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages 319–320 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Climate change is projected to increase annual Nile river flow; importantly, year-to-year variability is also expected to increase markedly. More variable flows could present a challenge for consistent water resource provision in this region.

Nile river flows have shown notable variability throughout recorded history. Now analysis of climate models suggests that in the future interannual variability is likely to increase, with important consequences for the reliability of associated water resources1. This comes at a critical time, when the major Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is nearing completion and Ethiopia is recovering from a serious drought associated with the 2015 El Niño event. Rivers draining the Ethiopian Highlands (the Eastern Nile Basin), particularly the Blue Nile, are the dominant source of downstream main Nile flows, complemented by Lake Victoria outflows and some runoff from the White Nile system. The rapidly growing populations of arid and semi-arid downstream countries Egypt and Sudan are highly reliant on the Nile for their freshwater.

This is a preview of subscription content

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Percent annual rainfall anomaly for 2015 with respect to the period 1981–2016 (data from ref. 10).

References

  1. Siam, M. S. & Eltahir, E. A. B. Nat. Clim. Change http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3273 (2017).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Zaroug, M. A. H., Eltahir, E. A. B. & Giorgi, F. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 18, 1239–1249 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Cai, W. et al. Nat. Clim. Change 4, 111–116 (2014).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Hurst, H. E. Trans. Am. Soc. Civ. Eng. 116, 770–779 (1951).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Taye, M. T., Tadesse, T., Senay, G. B. & Block, P. J. Water Resour. Plan. Manag. http://doi.org/b5kb (2016).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Zhang, Y., Tassew, S. T. & Block, P. Water Int. 41, 593–610 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Rowell, D. P., Booth B. B. B., Nicholson S. E. & Good, P. J. Clim. 28, 9768–9788 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Rowell, D., Senior, C. A., Vellinga, M. & Graham, R. J. Climatic Change 134, 621–633 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Cervigni, R., Liden, R., Neumann, J. E. & Strzepek, K. M. (eds) Enhancing the Climate Resilience of Africa's Infrastructure: The Power and Water Sectors (World Bank Publications, 2015).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  10. Funk, C. et al. Sci. Data 2, 150066 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Declan Conway is at the Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK,

    Declan Conway

Authors
  1. Declan Conway
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Declan Conway.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Conway, D. Future Nile river flows. Nature Clim Change 7, 319–320 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3285

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3285

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing