Atbarah River

Coordinates: 17°40′41″N 33°58′25″E / 17.6781°N 33.9735°E / 17.6781; 33.9735
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Atbarah River
Location
Countries
Physical characteristics
Mouth 
 • location
Discharges into the Nile
 • coordinates
17°40′41″N 33°58′25″E / 17.6781°N 33.9735°E / 17.6781; 33.9735
Length805 kilometres (500 mi)
Basin size69,000 square kilometres (27,000 sq mi)
Discharge 
 • average374 m3/s (13,200 cu ft/s)
Map of the river's course

The Atbarah River (

Mediterranean
.

For much of the year, it is little more than a stream. However, during the rainy season (generally July to October), the Atbarah rises some 18 ft (5 m) above its normal level. At this time it forms a formidable barrier between the northern and central districts of the

Greater Angereb which has its source north of the city of Gondar
.

History

The earliest surviving mention of the Atbarah is by

Latin: Megabarri in Pliny the Elder).[1] Pliny the Elder provides a slightly different etymology of Astaboras, stating that "in the language of the local people" the name means "water coming from the shades below" (N.H.
5.10).

In April 1898 a major

Lord Kitchener, which resulted in the destruction of the 20,000-strong Mahdist detachment.[4]

In 1964, the river was dammed by the

Aswan High Dam (Sad al-Aali) in Egypt, which flooded 500 km of the Nile Valley in southern Egypt and northern Sudan.[5]

Construction on a $1.9 billion twin dam project about 20 km upstream from the confluence of the Upper Atbara and Setit rivers, the Rumela and Burdana dams, began in 2011 and was inaugurated by President Omar al-Bashir in February 2017.[6]

Hydrology

Average monthly flow (1912–1982) of the Atbarah measured approximately 25 km upstream of its mouth, measured in m3/s:[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Claude Rilly, Le méroïtique et sa famille linguistique, Peeters, Louvain 2010, p. 179
  2. ^ "LacusCurtius • Ptolemy's Geography — Book IV, Chapter 7". Penelope.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2013-12-10.
  3. ^ Richard Pankhurst, The Ethiopian Borderlands (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1997), p. 27
  4. ^ Winston Churchill (1899). The River War Volume 1. Longmans. p. 416 Chapter XIII.
  5. ISSN 0276-4741
    .
  6. ^ Gregory B. Poindexter (2 February 2017). "Sudan inaugurates US$1.9 billion Upper Atbara and Setit Dam hydropower project". HydroWorld. Retrieved 4 November 2018.
  7. ^ "Nile - Kilo 3". University of New Hampshire. 2000-02-26.

External links