Environment sustainability

Plastic pollution impacts freshwater ecosystems and associated marine environments by affecting water quality, posing health risks to humans and animals, increasing floods risks, impairing water and transport infrastructure, and, if accumulated, becoming an aesthetic eyesore. A growing number of studies recognize rivers as ‘conveyor belts’ transporting plastic waste from their catchment areas into our oceans and seas. However, for the Nile Basin, there is little data available on the quantity and impact of plastic pollution for the marine environment.

The effects of climate change are being felt around the globe. The African continent, while contributing least to greenhouse gas emissions, is most vulnerable and yet is predicted to be hit hardest by the impacts of climate change.

Catchment is the action of collecting water, especially the collection of rainfall over a natural drainage area. A catchment area is, therefore, a geographical location from which rainfall flows into a river, lake, or reservoir.

Water is the lifeline of nearly every aspect of life. Keeping that water in a useable state, therefore, greatly increases its availability and the sustenance of the life that depends on it. In fact, water quality is one of the most important factors in a healthy ecosystem because clean water supports a diversity of plants and wildlife.

The Nile and its main tributaries flow through a large variety of ecosystems, each of great relevance for biodiversity conservation and human livelihoods, and providing important regional and local ecosystem services. The continued provision of these ecosystem services is heavily dependent on a minimum water flow, or environmental flows.

The Nile region is well endowed with energy resources that include natural gas, oil, hydropower potential, geothermal energy, coal, peat, biomass, solar and wind. Despite the richness in energy sources, electricity supply in many Nile countries is inadequate, unreliable and expensive.

The Nile Agenda is about what needs to be done to support the attainment of the Nile Vision Objective, agreed by the NBI member countries in 2002 to “achieve sustainable socio-economic development through equitable utilisation of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources.”

As the populations and economies of the Nile Basin countries grow, so does the demand for water, food and energy. If countries develop as planned and without coordination, this will put pressure on the already strained water resources of the region.

The Nile and its main tributaries flow through several large wetlands of great relevance for biodiversity conservation. These wetlands provide important regional and local ecosystem services: