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https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... /2147.html

This does not include coastlines, because Saudi Arabia has zero sq. km of surface water despite having a large coast.

Some questions - how does Eritrea have so much water, as they don't have any perennial rivers. They must have a ton of lakes, or better yet its probably their highlands that soak up all that water and retain it. And I'm also shocked we have nearly as much water as Turkey, they're the source of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. We have almost twice as much water as Egypt and they feed 80 million people on it comfortably. We have twice as much surface water as France & the UK COMBINED. We have 1/5th the surface water of Brazil and they're the damn lungs of the world!

My goodness, we're in business.

Monk-of-Mogadishu wrote:https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... /2147.html

This does not include coastlines, because Saudi Arabia has zero sq. km of surface water despite having a large coast.

Some questions - how does Eritrea have so much water, as they don't have any perennial rivers. They must have a ton of lakes, or better yet its probably their highlands that soak up all that water and retain it. And I'm also shocked we have more water than Turkey, they're the source of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. We have almost twice as much water as Egypt and they feed 80 million people on it comfortably. We have twice as much surface water as France & the UK COMBINED. We have 1/5th the surface water of Brazil and they're the damn lungs of the world!

My goodness, we're in business.

Juba and Shabelle watersheds.

If they were dammed it would be an agricultural gold mine

Damming is an ecological nightmare. I would lobby any future government against it.

The question is, are Jubba and Shabelle equal to the Tigris and Euphrates in size? Turkey as a whole is so much greener than Somalia. Forget Turkey I'm surprised that France and the UK, and Germany have less water than Somalia when their entire countries are green and over half of Somalia is arid or semi-arid. Perhaps they just irrigate better. I'm still puzzled about Eritrea's water wealth.

Monk-of-Mogadishu wrote:https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... /2147.html

This does not include coastlines, because Saudi Arabia has zero sq. km of surface water despite having a large coast.

Some questions - how does Eritrea have so much water, as they don't have any perennial rivers. They must have a ton of lakes, or better yet its probably their highlands that soak up all that water and retain it. And I'm also shocked we have more water than Turkey, they're the source of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. We have almost twice as much water as Egypt and they feed 80 million people on it comfortably. We have twice as much surface water as France & the UK COMBINED. We have 1/5th the surface water of Brazil and they're the damn lungs of the world!

My goodness, we're in business.

Somalia has a two large rivers that if derailed to the arid north instead of going straight into the indian ocean it would make somalia the food basket of the entire sub saharan africa.and the nice thing about Jubba and shabelle is that the source country(Ethiopia) has no imfustructure capability to retain a large body of water yet,thus we almost get the entire two rivers for our selves!

Monk-of-Mogadishu wrote:Damming is an ecological nightmare. I would lobby any future government against it.

with two rivers that flood every year like the jubba and shabelle you either dam it or you damned.

samadoon-waaxid wrote:with two rivers that flood every year like the jubba and shabelle you either dam it or you damned.

If you dam you are damned is more true. Damming has nice short-term benefits simply as a comfort, but its disastrous in the long term. Read about the Aswan High Dam and its side effects for reference. Industrial damming is against nature. I can't go further into detail, I can only recommend references for reading, but damming is a costly affair ecologically.

Even if you dam up rivers they will still flood, and the floods will be even worse than before damming. There are other ways to harness river water without damming. The South doesn't need damming, they get enough rainfall to grow anything year-round and the tiny irrigation water needed thereafter can be stored or pumped another way.

And your statement about "derailing" water to the arid north shows you have a suicidal policy on water. Irrigating the desert is a terrible idea, look at what the Soviets did to the Aral Sea. Again, you are blinded by the comforts of water where it shouldn't be, but derailing water to inhospitable places that should not even be inhabited is a bad idea. There is enough underground water that can sustainably be used in the north to do all the irrigation needed for its small population but using groundwater for anything other than drinking and sanitation is a bad idea anyway. Growing mangoes in Qardho is silly. Personally I hate the idea of places like Bosaso or Hargeisa having a large population when its not sustainable in the long run. Those places should only be inhabited for short-term employment reasons (trade), in the future they should not be seen as some sort of Los Angeles. And on the subject of Los Angeles, its another desert town being irrigated by water from Northern California - people are wasting resources for no reason, habitation of Los Angeles should be discouraged in this policy.

sudan and ethiopia

Why not just make a decent network of reservoirs and canals. Much cheaper and easy to build and providing big enough investment, it could take water very far.

I wonder what the aquifer resources of somalia are? It seems like most of the rain water sinks deep into the ground, even in the south some areas always look arid and dry.


btw you can green the desert sustainably

How come some countries have 0 water sq km? What does that even mean?

Basra- wrote:How come some countries have 0 water sq km? What does that even mean?

It means they have no surface water; no rivers, no lakes, nothing, and very small rainfall ending up in natural reservoirs.

Kanada wrote:Why not just make a decent network of reservoirs and canals. Much cheaper and easy to build and providing big enough investment, it could take water very far.

I wonder what the aquifer resources of somalia are? It seems like most of the rain water sinks deep into the ground, even in the south some areas always look arid and dry.

btw you can green the desert sustainably

Again, I repeat, its a waste of water. Its like investing money in a beaten car. "Greening the desert" is very stupid, I wonder why Eritrea doesn't learn from the Israelis or the Uzbeks or the Americans or any other society that has foolishly tried to put things where they didn't belong; we can only alter nature so much but our powers are limited. When I was a kid I used to think that planting trees in arid places would recreate the conditions of a true forest and that rainfall would return to these arid areas - but none of that happens.

"Greening the desert" is an illusion. When you plant a forest in the desert it won't remain, it'll die if you don't continue to water it. In other words - you're just running a fancy GARDEN. Nothing more. It has no benefits other than beauty, that is it. You can grow food, but its at a high cost. Since there's no rain you'll be pumping a lot more water and for a small gain. This becomes dangerous when you start tapping aquifers, then you begin engaging in what's known as "water mining."

The Eritreans are stupid, just like the Soviets were and just as the Chinese are. All authoritarian regimes controlled tightly by the state have a terrible record of abusing resources. Cuba is the only positive example.

If Ethiopia dams the two rivers, as it has done with other rivers, how badly would Somalia be effected?

As someone mentioned earlier, it is a real waste to let the river(s) drain into the Idia Ocean. The should be re-routed before they empty out into the ocean.

WTF based on those statistics Somalia should be more well off in terms of farming than most of mainlaind europe and ethiopia and Sudan should have two of the greatest agricultural economies of the world - rivalling USA and India. But at least in sudan there isn't anybody starving. This world is a messed up place .

juzme123 wrote:If Ethiopia dams the two rivers, as it has done with other rivers, how badly would Somalia be effected?

As someone mentioned earlier, it is a real waste to let the river(s) drain into the Idia Ocean. The should be re-routed before they empty out into the ocean.

If Ethiopia dams the two rivers; which is going to be hard since both of them are deep in Ogaden territory on the other side and they originate in deep anti-Ethiopian Oromo territory. It will never happen. If they did dam them, Somalia would get significantly less water depending on how Ethiopia used the rivers.

And also, rivers don't "run" to the ocean, they will return in the form of rainfall. Its not a loss. Damming will just destroy everything permanently for a short-term gain. The water can be stored moderately and efficiently but damming is a massive activity that is unnecessary in scale.

Monk-of-Mogadishu wrote:
And also, rivers don't "run" to the ocean, they will return in the form of rainfall. Its not a loss. Damming will just destroy everything permanently for a short-term gain. The water can be stored moderately and efficiently but damming is a massive activity that is unnecessary in scale.

I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't disputing that the river is replenished from the source. I was just pointing out that some of the water is wasted as the river finishes its course and drains into the ocean when it could be put to use/rerouted to irrigate more land.

Apparently there are some dams already built on the Shabelle (which usually dries up before reaching the Jubba river):

In 1988, Ethiopia completed the Melka Wakana hydroelectric project on the upper reaches of the Shabelle. Ethiopia has now built another large dam on the Shabelle for irrigation and hydropower generation. Due to the very narrow arable alluvial plains, there are few permanent agricultural settlements along the Shabelle River inside Ethiopia.