Water Needs Strategy of Major Plant Crops Cultivated in The Countries of Nile River Basin

Elsokkary, Ibrahim; Abukila, A. F.

doi:10.21608/asejaiqjsae.2013.3097

Water Needs Strategy of Major Plant Crops Cultivated in The Countries of Nile River Basin

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Ibrahim Elsokkary ¹
A. F. Abukila ²

¹ Department of Soil and Water Sciences, Faculty of Agricultural, El-Shatby, Alexandria University.Alexandria, Egypt,

² National Water Research Center, Drainage Research institute, Egypt El-Qanater El-Khairiya post code:13621

10.21608/asejaiqjsae.2013.3097

Abstract

The Nile River basin is flowing from south to north over 35 degree of latitude and is extending from the humid region to the desert region. The territories of Burundi, DR Congo, Egypt, Eretria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Soudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda are located within the Nile River basin. These countries have wide range of rainfall varying from mean values of 1000 mm/year in the countries of humid region to less than 20 mm/year in countries of semi- desert and desert regions. The mean volumes of water withdrawal, as percentage of renewable water are 5.0 for Burundi, 0.0 for DR Congo, 92.0 for Egypt, 5.0 for Eritrea, 2.0 for Ethiopia, 3.0 for Kenya, 1.0 for Rwanda, 56.0 for Sudan and 1.0 for Uganda. The crop water needs can be supplied from rainfall or from irrigation or by a combination of both. The irrigation water need (IWN) can be obtained by the difference between crop evapotranspiration (ETcrop) and the effective rainfall (Pe). Accordingly, in this investigation, the"Blanery and Criddle” method for the determination of reference evapotranspiration (ETο) and crop factor (Kc) is employed for the determination of IWN of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) plant cultivated in the countries of Nile basin. The data obtained indicated, comparatively, that the highest IWN is required by sorghum cultivated in Egypt and Sudan (582 and 524 mm/TGP) and the lowest is required by DR Congo, Ethiopia, Uganda and south Sudan (230, 239, 240 and 180 mm/TGP, respectively). As a result of suitable renewable management in irrigation, the expected percentages of water which can be saved from Nile water are 41.9, 48.9, 47.8 and 62.5 for Burundi, DR Congo, Uganda, and S. Sudan, respectively, and can be therefore a supplementary water source for other countries like Egypt and Sudan.

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