The Sudd Sustainable Development: Contextualizing the current flooding levels in South Sudan and the Nile Basin region
Implications of Climate Change in Coupled Human and Natural Systems: The Sudd Sustainable Development: Contextualizing the Current Flooding Levels in South Sudan and the Rest of the Nile Basin Region.
By Deng Majok Chol, High Point, NC, USA
Thursday, August 13, 2020 (PW) — The Nile River, which is the longest river in the world, is called “the Father of African rivers.” It rises south of the Equator and flows northward through northeastern Africa to drain into the Mediterranean Sea. It has a length of about 4,132 miles (6,650 kilometres) and drains an area estimated at 1,293,000 square miles (3,349,000 square kilometres). The Nile Basin includes parts of Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Sudan, and the cultivated part of Egypt. Its most distant source is the Kagera River in Burundi. (Britannica.com)
While the seasonal flooding poses threats to human survival in South Sudan every year, the country does not have too much water. South Sudan simply does not have a sustainable water resources management plan or strategies to that end. The Suddand its water resources, if managed properly, could be the greatest economic asset of South Sudan, even more precious and economically rewarding than the country’s unstable petroleum sector.
These ongoing levels of flooding in South Sudan and in other countries within the Nile Basin are gravely concerning. The South Sudanese populations, particularly those in the Upper Nile region, are deeply affected by this uncontrolled flooding which is inundating their communities with deep waters for months at a time, necessitating mass evacuations. These deep flood waters are destroying their homes and community infrastructure, along with drowning their crops and livestock, their only food sources, causing continuing strife. This tragedy is compounded by the intractable inter-communal feuds over cattle, land, child abduction and cultural differences.
Community strife, along with intercommunal conflicts, could possibly be ameliorated by introducing practices of flood control and land management using basic, locally sourced, technology (i.e. short canals for drainage and irrigation plus windmills for pumping water to and from reservoirs, both drain and irrigate the land, according to season). Building regional infrastructure using these practices, and others, could mitigate seasonal flooding and also provide water for both crops and livestock during dry seasons. This would provide more seasonal stability in food supply and allow those tending herds to remain on their own land so there is less inter-communal contest/conflict over land rights. Successful intercommunal cooperation in building water management infrastructure within the Sudd could also promote cooperation in other community interactions.
These long-term hydrological threats, with their increasing severity due to global warming, demand long-term solutions. The current generation is now equipped with education, skills, and technology to imagine solutions more fully to unanswered calls for help spanning centuries of communal strife. The lack is now leadership, organization, funding, and implementation.
While I am only a budding authority on the dimensions of water, society and sustainable development, my preliminary study on the Nile River System shows global warming is dialing up sea levels, and that the temperatures of the Indian Ocean have been steadily rising at least in the past four years. This phenomenon seems responsible for massive precipitations over land around the sources of the Nile- namely Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, DRC, Ethiopia -owing to atmospheric pressures that carry evaporations across the regions.
This is further compounded by the effects of an Intertropical Convergence Zone over the warm air of the equator. In fact, most of the rains that inundated Uganda, South Sudan, and Ethiopian in 2018, 2019, and part of this year’s floodwaters in 2020 are shown to have originated from the warming temperatures of the Indian Ocean.
All of the precipitation that originates from the equatorial countries (or “the mountains of the moons,”, as our ancestors in ancient Egypt referred to the sources of the Nile) finds its way either visibly (runoffs) or invisibly (by infiltration) into Lake Victoria, which is a massive, trans-boundary reservoir.
A more visualized analogy of Lake Victoria and its unique hydrological role as a reservoir could be found in our imagination as a gigantic beast that swallows all water through seven or more mouths, but with only one belly and disposal exit.
With only one outlet to South Sudan through Jinja, the Lake Victoria belly has been experiencing ever-rising water levels, landing to disastrous flooding in South Sudan.
In fact, in times of severe flooding in Uganda around Lake Victoria, the Ugandan authority issues decrees for all populations living adjacent to the Lakes, dam, the Nile River itself to evacuate immediately.
As for South Sudan, increasingly severe seasonal flooding, whether from precipitation or as an overflow from the Suddwetlands and swamps, demonstrates a lack of coordinated water resources management by multiple experts and public officials such as urban planners, land surveyors, hydrologists and pedologists, among others.
Are the traditional informal coping mechanisms such as passive canals, and small handmade dykes still effective in the face of increasing seasonal flooding in South Sudan?
The indigenous populations of the Bari, Kakwa, Kuku, Shilluk, Nuer, Dinka, Murle, Jur Chol, Acholi, Mundari among many other ethnic communities along the White Nile course have tried to co-exist or even co-evolve with floodwater for centuries. The hydrological threats are multifaceted phenomena that require long-term solutions from multi-stakeholders, including the indigenous populations in the Sudd Basin.
In my process of studying the White Nile River System and the Sudd, I am forming an increasingly solidified view, based on prior studies, current events and my own observations, that the areas which flood in South Sudan do not have too much water. I know this may sound like an audacious observation to make at the time when cities and villages are squarely submerged in floodwater but let us call out the truth. South Sudan does not have too much water; the country simply does not have a sustainable integrated water resources management framework.
In fact, South Sudan seasonal flooding lasts only three to four months, but the dry season, during which the country lacks water and its clay soils cracks, lasts about four to five months.So, it is a seasonal hydrological situation that entails too much water over a brief time span in some of the regions and too little water over a longer period in most of the regions.
The point is that I hope the populations, including local, stateand national authorities, do not continue to fail to see how South Sudanese communities along the Nile and within the Sudd lack effective local and regional water management skills.
Importantly, because of climate change due to global warming and other factors, there has been increasing hydrological variability of the Nile River system. There are now greater fluctuations in terms of precipitation intensities and time intervals between years of drought and those of prolonged flooding levels that can possibly surpass those of the1960s and1980s.
The White Nile River System, especially citing the unique role of its reservoir, Lake Victoria, as a source of seasonal flooding, exemplifies what I have termed as “the paradox of the Sudd. That is, on the one hand, the Sudd Basin has been a key source of livelihoods for millions of South Sudanese and is home to a massive self-sustained ecosystem. On the other hand, however, the basin’s unmanaged, severe, seasonal flooding, which hastaken countless human lives, destroyed settlements and upended their farms and livestock, poses an ongoing threat to the future of South Sudan and its people who cries out for immediate and cooperative solutions.
Most of the floodwater of the Sudd comes from the overflow of the White Nile through the multiplicity of its channels within the Sudd where the Nile banks are leveled off. The rest of the sources of the floodwater of the Sudd is attributable to local runoff and throughfall (direct precipitation) over the entire catchment, mostly during the wet seasons.
The Sudd Basin starts from Mongalla, and includes Boma Plateau, Bahr El Jebel, Bahr El Zeraf, Bahr El Ghazal, Bahr El Arab- all containing tributaries forming a massive confluence around Malakal with the Baro-Sobat River and the Machar Marshes, which drains runoff as far as Boma, Pachala, and Ethiopia highland
There must be a realization that the current traditional mechanisms of adaptations in South Sudan to seasonal flooding are absolutely limited and can no longer sustain survival of individuals or their communities. A new level of thinking, and subsequent implementation is therefore needed to protect flood-prone communities from the threats of high waters in short, medium, and long-term horizons.
The real bad news for countries like South Sudan which have not mastered effective mechanisms in managing the threats of floodwater, is that climate change due to global warming, and the effects of Intertropical Convergence Zones (ITCZ) over the equator will continue to cause a rising in sea level and that the precipitation frequency and intensity will continue to increase, causing ever-increasing devastation.
More flooding is bound to occur in South Sudan for the foreseeable future according to the current trends informed by data. Therefore, South Sudan’s governmental authority, in addition to the regions and communities affected by seasonal flooding, need to refocus their energies and resources to a model of sustainable water resources management. Humans and flood water can no longer continue to coexist or co-evolve naturally, as has been the case for the last several centuries; there need to be active, structural flood prevention intervention. However, the needed structural intervention, whether on a small or large scale, must be informed and preceded by scientific studies.
In order to cope with these flood trends, South Sudan’s governmental authorities, communities, and regions need to have concerted prevention and mitigation plans and strategies for coping which are: 1) short-term, 6 months to 1 year, 2) medium, 3 years to 5 years, and 3) long-term, 6 to 15 years.
The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation should: 1) shoulder the responsibility of flood mitigation at a national level and across all states, paying particular attention to communities and regions which are disproportionally affected by flooding. 2) champion flood prevention and mitigation solutions by advancing understanding of the socio-hydrological processes and implications of climate change in coupled human and natural systems within the Sudd Basin. 3) develop budgetary plans, policies and management practices of relevance to national government, state and local authorities, business, NGOs, and local communities. 4) establish a National Flood and Drought Technical Team (NFDTT- for flood and drought prevention and mitigation), a Disaster Management Relief Team ( DMRT- for flooded areas and those affected by drought), and station portions of those teams in each of the states or regions.
In addition, the Presidency, Parliament, or Cabinet of Ministers should craft a legislation that mandates flood mitigation budgets for the next 3 years
Again, South Sudan does not have too much water; it needs to exercise leadership over its water resources and adopt a sustainable water resources management framework that enables states and local communities to avoid both personal and economic devastation by providing them with both an effective response team and physical framework to mitigate the effects of flooding and drought.
Aluta continua victoria acerta
The author, Deng Majok-Gutatuur Chol Jok, is a South Sudanese American doctoral student, DPhil Student, Oxford University, School of Geography and The Environment Dissertation Topic: Ecosystem Services of the Sudd: Understanding the Socio-Hydrological Dynamics of Seasonal Flooding in the Sudd Wetland of South Sudan. Doctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT), Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. He can be reached via his email: Deng_chol@hks15.harvard.edu; dengmchol@yahoo.com
Deng de Majok-Gutatuur Chol Jok’s Biography.
Education: After moving to the United States from Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya to the USA, Deng attended Arizona State University and graduated, as the First Lost Boy to graduate from U.S. University, with a B.S. in Political Science and minor in Economics, and went on to graduate with a 2 year-Master of Business Administration, MBA, from George Washington University and a second 2 year-Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University. While at Arizona State and Harvard, he was the President of Arizona State African Student Association and a Co-Chair of Harvard Kennedy School Student Ambassadors as well as a Dubin fellow at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership.Deng has direct experiences working with multilateral agencies: World Bank, International Finance Corporation, International Monetary Fund; USAID, U.S. Congress; Humanitarian agencies.
Key Publications: 1)A “New” Path for Managing Oil Revenues and Governance in South Sudan; 2) A wake up Call to South Sudan Seeds of Nation Generation; 3) South Sudan investor guide with the International Finance Corporation, IFC; 5) South Sudan Energy Assessment towards sustainable development, in collaboration with Humanity United.
Presentations: Spoke at 1) At the Reunion of the Lost Boys in Washington, DC 2003 to representatives of US Government and UN advocating for peace in the Sudan and in support of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA); 2) At the First Conference of the Lost Boys and Reunion with Dr. John Garangwith SPLA/M High Command in support of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA); 3) High Level Panel” on “Strengthening the International Development Response to Forced Displacement”, at the World Bank, Washington, D.C ; 4) “ Advancing Good Governance in International Development Goals, Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs in Oxford, England; 4) A panelist at Two Sudan (s): The Paths Forward, Harvard; 6) the Advancing Solutions for Refugees and IDPs: New Partners, New Measures, Cambridge, US.; 7) Presented a written Speech, on behalf of the Lost Boys and Girls Community in the U.S., to SPLM Secretariats at the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) 2nd National Convention,Juba, South Sudan, May, 2008. .
Current Status: Deng is PhD student at Oxford University pursuing DPhil in Geography and The Environment, (Department: School of Geography and The Environment) with a dissertation research topics: Ecosystem Services of the Sudd: Understanding the Socio-Hydrological Dynamics of Seasonal Flooding in the Sudd Wetland of South Sudan. His research is being supported by Professors from Oxford, MIT, Harvard, University of Colorado Boulder, Duke University, and Furman University, who are mostly water engineers, environmental engineers, economists, climate and environmental risk, civil and environmental, and architectural engineering, political science, foreign policy decision-making and peace and conflict studies, public policy, global environmental politics and environmental security, global environmental politics and governance, environmental conflict and peacebuilding, the political economy of the resource curse, energy policy; environmental health; environmental policy–International cooperation
Professional working experiences: Deng had been with Samaritan’s Purse for the past three years as the Global Humanitarian Technical Advisor on programming on displaced and refugee populations, victims of human trafficking, child soldiers, gender-based violence among various other vulnerable populations. And more recently at the beginning of 2020, Deng has joined the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS), Massachusetts institute of technology, MIT, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, EAPS, MIT School of Science, as a Project Assistance in the Southern Africa – Toward Integrated Economic Development (SA-TIED) IFPRI. In this new capacity, Deng’s focus areas include but not limited to the:
• Studies literature sources on the White Nile and SuddWetland of South Sudan.
• Studies Okavango Delta and wetland, and its basin development projects that involves Angola, Botswana, and Namibia.
• Studies of Zambezi Strategic Plan and Zambezi River Multisectoral Basin Development Scenarios that involves Angola, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, and Tanzania.
• Opportunities and threats for sustainable farming for small holder subsistence farming in Southern Africa
• Explores the resources of the Invisible 60 percent of the rain fed subsistence farming in Southern Africa.
Books Authored: Deng is authoring an intimate, amazing, and inspiring autobiography: “Phoenix Rising: A Lost Boy’s Tale of Beauty for Ashes.”
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