Awash River

Coordinates: 11°06′00″N 40°34′46″E / 11.10000°N 40.57944°E / 11.10000; 40.57944
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lower Valley of the Awash
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Map of the Awash drainage basin
LocationEthiopia
CriteriaCultural: (ii)(iii)(iv)
Reference10
Inscription1980 (4th Session)

The Awash (sometimes spelled Awaash;

endorheic drainage basin covering parts of the Amhara, Oromia and Somali Regions, as well as the southern half of the Afar Region
.

The Awash Valley (and especially the

World Heritage List in 1980.[1]

Overview

The Awash rises south of

woreda of Dandi, close to the town of Ginchi, West Shewa Zone, Oromia. After entering the bottom of the Great Rift Valley, the Awash flows south to loop around Mount Zuqualla in an easterly then northeasterly direction, before entering Koka Reservoir. There, water is used for the irrigation of sugar cane plantations. Downstream, the Awash passes the city of Adama and the Awash National Park. It is then joined on its left bank by its chief affluent, the Germama
(or Kasam) River, before turning northeast at approximately 11° N 40° 30' E as far north as 12° before turning completely east to reach lake Gargori.

According to materials published by the Ethiopian

Central Statistical Agency, the Awash River is 1200 kilometers long.[2] Frank Richardson Cana, in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article Abyssinia, describes its middle portion as "a copious stream nearly 200 feet [61 meters] wide and 4 feet [1.2 meters] deep in the dry season, and during the floods rising 50 or 60 feet [15 or 18 meters] above low-water mark, thus inundating the plains for many miles along both its banks."[3]

Other tributaries of the Awash include (in order upstream): the Logiya, Mille, Borkana, Ataye, Hawadi, Kabenna and Durkham Rivers. Towns and cities along its course include Metehara, Awash, Gewane and Asaita.

Paleontology

Main article: Middle Awash

Humans have lived in the valley of the Awash almost since the beginning of the species. Numerous pre-human

Australopithecines, including "Lucy", the most famous individual Australopithecus.[4][1] Other extinct hominids discovered at the site include Homo erectus and Ardipithecus
.

History

Awash River in the Awash National Park

The valley of the Awash from about 9° N downstream is the traditional home of the Afar people and Issa people.[5] The valley of the Awash have been included as part of the Fatagar, Ifat, and Shewa.[6]

According to Huntingford, in the 16th century the Awash river was called the great Dir river and lay in the country of the Muslims.[7]

The Koka Dam before it was completed 1960

The first European to trace the course of the Awash to its end in the

Afar Depression to the Red Sea.[8]
)

In 1960, the Koka Dam was completed across the Awash River at a point around 75 kilometres (47 mi) from Addis Ababa. With its opening, it became a major source of

hydroelectric power in the area. The resulting freshwater lake, Lake Gelila (also known as the Koka Reservoir), has an area of about 180 square kilometres (69 sq mi). Both lake and dam are threatened by increasing sedimentation
.

The Awash International Bank is named for the Awash River.[9]

Climate

The climate of the Awash River Basin is mostly influenced by the movement of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). During its movement northwards in March/April and its retreat southwards, ITCZ creates two rainy seasons, a shorter one around March ('Belg'), and a longer one between June and September ('Kiremt'), which partly fall into one longer rainy season. The rain-season tends to be bimodal towards eastern Ethiopia and almost unimodal towards western Ethiopia. The time between October and March is a dry season, called 'Bega'.[10] Semi-arid to arid conditions prevail in the Rift Valley. In contrast, the highlands partly receive more than 1,600 millimetres (63 in) of rainfall in ca. six months per year.[11]

Hydrology

Groundwater recharge varies between values exceeding 350 millimetres (14 in) per year in the upper highlands and no recharge at the bottom of the rift valley.[11][12] Groundwater is predominantly recharged at the escarpments and highlands above 1900 m a.s.l.,[13] where annual rainfall is higher than 1,000 millimetres (39 in).[12] Localized small-scale recharge is also supposed to occur at the flanks of the rift valley volcanoes.[13] Artificial groundwater recharge takes further place at irrigated plantations at the rift valley.[13] Recharge from river channel losses and via infiltration from lakes plays a role in the Main Ethiopian Rift (MER) and in southern Afar.[12]

Ecology

Most of the Awash Basin is part of the Ethiopian montane forests ecoregion. At high altitudes the Ethiopian montane grasslands and woodlands and Ethiopian montane moorlands predominate. The Somali Acacia–Commiphora bushlands and thickets ecoregion occupies low elevations in the Rift.[14]

The basin's vegetation has a strong anthropogenic impact.

teff, maize, sorghum, beans and vegetables.[15] Pastures hardly exist where agriculture is possible. The cattle graze on field edges and waysides and on steep escarpments. This is one major reason for erosion, because vegetation cover is partly destroyed. Stubble-grazing is a common practice in the Awash Basin.[16]

Fauna

The lower Awash valley is one of the last wildlife preserves for the

Grevy's zebra
. Crocodiles also flourish within the river.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Lower Valley of the Awash". UNESCO World Heritage Site. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Retrieved 18 September 2021.
  2. ^ "Climate, 2008 National Statistics (Abstract)" Archived 2010-11-13 at the Wayback Machine, Table A.1. Central Statistical Agency website (accessed 26 December 2009)
  3. ^  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Abyssinia". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 84.
  4. ^
    S2CID 4432082
    .
  5. S2CID 153511308
    .
  6. ^ Richard Pankhurst, The Ethiopian Borderlands (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1997), p. 61
  7. ISBN 978-0-9723172-6-9
    .
  8. ^ As related in his memoirs, Hell-Hole of Creation: The Exploration of Abyssinian Danakil (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1935)
  9. ^ "assessment of credit risk management policies" (PDF). 1 November 2022.
  10. ISSN 1097-0088
    .
  11. ^
    doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.10.003
    .
  12. ^
    doi:10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2008.06.006
    .
  13. ^
    doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2011.03.022
    .
  14. ^ "The ecozones of the world. The ecological division of the geosphere". ResearchGate. Retrieved 2017-10-21.
  15. ^ a b Knoche, M. (2011): Hydrological Modelling of the Upper Awash Catchment (Main Ethiopian Rift). Master thesis, Technische Universität Freiberg, 2011, Freiberg, Germany
  16. ISSN 1096-9837
    .
  17. ^ Moehlman, P.D., Yohannes, H., Teclai, R. & Kebede, F. 2008. Equus Africanus. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.1. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 28 September 2011.

External links

Further reading

  • Zewdu Tememew Molla, "Dam Safety Evaluation on Koka Dam, Ethiopia". M.Sc. thesis, 2005. abstract

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Abyssinia". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 11°06′00″N 40°34′46″E / 11.10000°N 40.57944°E / 11.10000; 40.57944

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Awash_River&oldid=1209345790"