The problems of the Nile region are as interconnected as the basin’s very waterways—each flows into the next. Among the most serious challenges are poverty and food insecurity, water shortages, land degradation and pollution from effluents. Deforestation and cultivation of steep slopes have led to heavy soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, and sedimentation of lakes and reservoirs. The Nile has also become seriously polluted by agro chemicals, untreated sewage and industrial waste.
Despite all these problems, however, the resources of this large and complex water system—containing ecosystems as diverse as equatorial Africa’s Lake Victoria and Egypt’s Mediterranean delta 3,500 km to the north—have enormous potential to address poverty.
The CPWF recognizes that efficient water use, environmental protection, poverty alleviation, and the promotion of peace and security are critical issues for the region. Directly or indirectly, the program’s scientific agenda reflect these overriding concerns.
Research priorities include:
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Enhancing rainfed agriculture in upper basin areas
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Identifying practical water saving technologies
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Improving human health
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Increasing river yield from swamps and through control of aquatic weeds in open water courses and lakes
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Promoting sustainable fisheries
- Improving hydropower potential
The transboundary nature of the Nile Basin presents formidable obstacles to sustainable resource use and national economic development. Unilateral management and control of each country’s individual territory cannot, over the long term, benefit the region as a whole. Equitable and effective water allocation and environmental protection depend on institutionalized regional cooperation. The Challenge Program on Water and Food offers a multidisciplinary research framework for the design of transboundary solutions to the Nile Basin’s many challenges. The program, led by Egypt’s National Water Research Center, is complementing ongoing activities and cooperating with national and other stakeholder organizations in the region. Results of this work will be particularly valuable in other regions where water sharing and basin management require joint action by several countries.
The Integreated Database Information System [IDIS] Basin Kits provide baseline data layers (vector and grid) for the Nile Basin covering various domains such as climate, agriculture, soil, land use, topography, etc.