Climate change predicted to increase Nile flow variability.
Being able to predict the amount of flow variability, and even to forecast likely years of reduced flow, will become ever more important as the population of the Nile River basin, primarily in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, is expected to double by 2050, reaching nearly 1 billion.
The new study, based on a variety of global climate models and records of rainfall and flow rates over the last half-century, projects an increase of 50 percent in the amount of flow variation from year to year.
Originally, the correlation he showed between the El Niño/La Niña cycle and Ethiopian rainfall had been aimed at helping with seasonal and short-term predictions of the river’s flow, for planning storage and releases from the river’s many dams and reservoirs.
While there has been controversy about that dam, and especially about how the filling of its reservoir will be coordinated with downstream nations, Eltahir says this study points to the importance of focusing on the potential impacts of climate change and rapid population growth as the most significant drivers of environmental change in the Nile basin.
"Climate change predicted to increase Nile flow variability: Climate change could lead to overall increase in river flow, but more droughts and floods, study shows."
ScienceDaily, 24 April 2017.
Climate change predicted to increase Nile flow variability: Climate change could lead to overall increase in river flow, but more droughts and floods, study shows.
Retrieved April 24, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170424141236.htm Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Climate change predicted to increase Nile flow variability: Climate change could lead to overall increase in river flow, but more droughts and floods, study shows."

Dramatic cholera outbreaks in East Africa linked to extreme El Niño event.
Scientists have established a link between El Niño and cholera epidemics in Africa.
A study conducted in Bangladesh revealed an association between the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle and cholera.
El Niño is a climate cycle which has a global impact on weather patterns including tropical storms and drought.
The new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science is the first to tackle this issue.
They created high-resolution maps of cholera incidence and discussed the factors that could explain the outbreaks – whether population density, access to drinking water, access to sanitation, and distance to nearest major water body.
The scientists found that while the total number of cholera cases did not vary between El Niño years and non-El Niño years, the geographic distribution of cases did.
There were approximately 50,000 additional cases in East Africa during and following El Niño years and 30,000 fewer cases in southern Africa.
Thus, increased rainfall in East Africa partly explained why the number of cases exploded during El Niño.
We saw an association between rainfall and disease, at least in the few regions of East Africa where we know that rainfall tends to be higher during El Niño years", Moore pointed out.

What led to California’s drought-busting rain this winter?.
“It has been a very interesting winter across most of the United States with very stormy and chilly weather in the West,” AccuWeather Long-Range Forecaster Jack Boston said.
La Niña occurs when ocean water temperature are below normal across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator.
However, there are many other phenomena that occur that can influence the global weather pattern besides La Niña or El Niño.
“The factor that has caused all of the storminess in California this season seems to be an unusual sea surface temperature distribution in the Pacific Ocean,” Boston said.
While El Niño usually favors stormy weather for California, warm water off the coast sent the systems on a more northerly track, missing out on the drought-stricken state.
Water temperatures in this region fell drastically since last winter, allowing storms to track farther south and drop heavy rain and mountain snow over California.
The heavy rain and mountain snow was a double-edged sword for the state, helping to alleviate the severe drought but also triggering flooding, mudslides and avalanches.
Officials also opened the spillway to the Don Pedro water reservoir for the first time in 20 years to prevent water from flowing over the dam’s uncontrolled spillway.
“The rain and snow this winter, especially during January, was a huge help in the short and long-term drought,” AccuWeather Western Weather Expert Ken Clark said.

From El Nino Drought to Floods, Zimbabwe’s Double Trouble.
Africa, Aid, Climate Change, Combating Desertification and Drought, Development & Aid, Environment, Featured, Food & Agriculture, Headlines, Health, Humanitarian Emergencies, Poverty & SDGs, Water & Sanitation HARARE, Mar 3 2017 (IPS) – Dairai Churu, 53, sits with his chin cupped in his palms next to mounds of rubble from his destroyed makeshift home in the Caledonia informal settlement approximately 30 kilometers east of Harare, thanks to the floods that have inundated Zimbabwe since the end of last year.
From 2015 to mid-2016, the El Nino-induced drought also hit him hard, rendering his entire family hungry.
All my crops in 2015 were wiped out by the El Nino heat and this year came the floods, which also suffocated all my maize and it means another drought for me and my family,” Churu told IPS.
I don’t know what else to say,” Churu said.
With drought amidst the floods across many parts of this Southern African nation, the Poverty Reduction Forum Trust (PRFT) has been on record in the media here saying most Zimbabwean urban residents are relying on urban agriculture for sustenance owing to poverty.
This year’s floods, which are a direct effect of the El Nino weather, are the worst in 35 years and are now even worsening and bearing impacts on farming, health and livelihoods in developing countries like Zimbabwe,” Eldred Nhemachema, a meteorological expert based in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, told IPS.
Consequently, this Southern African nation this year declared a national emergency, as harvests here face devastation from the floods resulting in soaring food prices countrywide, according to the UN World Food Programme.
Based on this year’s February update from the country’s Department of Civil Protection, at least 117 people died since the beginning of the rainy season in October last year.
And for many Zimbabweans like Churu, who were earlier hit by the El Nino-induced drought, it is now double trouble.

In Somaliland, women are being raped as a result of extreme drought and lack of support.
Most women and girls in the camp have been assaulted or raped by gangs,” begins Hodan Ahmedan, 23, sitting in her makeshift shelter where she has lived since she arrived from drought-ridden eastern Somaliland to a camp for internally displaced in Maxamed Mooge, Hargeisa.
While men have found it possible to find jobs in the city, the multitude of dangers the drought has exposed women to – from sexual assaults, to illegal land grabbing, to lack of sanitary facilities – clearly demonstrates that it is the women who are bearing the brunt of the drought and its consequences.
The drought killed my animals.
“If we don’t pay, they set our shelters on fire,” explains Amina, “so many have here have been burnt”.
This camp, like most of the country, receives no humanitarian support from the international community or the government.
“Even our donkeys have died, this is the last one,” he claims.
“We have no water left.
They are lucky, she claims, none have suffered complications yet, but Dacar adds that with no water or food he expects a crisis in the coming days.
“We urgently need water and food, or we will die.” As most Somalilanders have had their very way of life ripped away from them by the drought – and the lack of national and international support – it is the women and most vulnerable who are bearing the brunt.