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Water Scarcity / It´s Causes and Effects

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Water Scarcity / It´s Causes and Effects

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There are millions of people all over the world who don't have access to water, or, if they have access, that water is unable to be used. About 70% of the Earth's surface is covered with water and 3% of it is actually freshwater that is fit for human consumption. Around two-thirds of that is tucked in frozen glaciers and unavailable for our use. According to WWF, some 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, and a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year.

Clean drinking water is scarce and there are millions of people across this globe who spend their entire day searching for it. Yet, people who have access to safe, clean drinking water take it for granted and don't use it wisely.

Water scarcity involves water crisis, water shortage, water deficit or water stress. Water scarcity can be due to physical water scarcity and economic water scarcity. Physical water scarcity refers to a situation where natural water resources are unable to meet a region's demand and economic water scarcity is a result of poor water management resources.

That being said, what are the causes of water scarcity, what are the effects of water scarcity, and are there any solutions that we can start to explore? Here's a quick look at all of those things in a bit more detail.

Children of a culture born in a water-rich environment, we have never really learned how important water is to us. We understand it, but we do not respect it.
-William Ashworth

According to Wikipedia, " Water scarcity is the lack of sufficient available water resources to meet the demands of water usage within a region. It already affects every continent and around 2.8 billion people around the world at least one month out of every year. More than 1.2 billion people lack access to clean drinking water."

Causes of Water Scarcity

Overuse of Water: Water overuse is a huge issue that a lot of people are dealing with. It may be overused on people, animals, land, or any other number of things. It may also be used for recreational activities without any care about the effects that it may have on the world around them.

Pollution of Water: Water pollution is a huge problem, especially when you're looking at areas that don't necessarily have a good sewage system. Pollution can be anything from oil, to carcasses, to chemicals, and to fecal matter. No matter what it is; it makes a lot of issues for the people who may need to use it.

Conflict: If there is conflict over an area of land, it may be difficult to access the water that is located there. In the worst case scenarios, people could end up dying if they try to access the water in these areas (due to violence). This can result in a variety of other issues, including pollution, which we discussed in the previous point.

Distance: There are a number of areas throughout the entire world that deal with water scarcity because they just aren't close to anywhere that has water. Areas that are considered to be desert, or areas that are secluded, may not have somewhere that the people can get water effectively.

Drought: A drought is, in short, an area which is not getting enough rainfall to be able to sustain the life that is residing there. Some areas are in perpetual drought, whereas other areas may be dealing with a drought on occasion. Droughts are common all over the world, and there is little that can be done to prevent such things from happening.

Governmental Access. In some countries, specifically those with dictatorships, the use of water may be strictly controlled by those in power, causing a scarcity for those who may be located in those areas of the world. These governments use it as a source of control over those that they are governing, which can be a huge problem.

Effects of Water Scarcity

Lack of Access to Drinking Water: The biggest problem that happens when you have water scarcity is that people are not able to get fresh, clean drinking water. The human body can only go so long without water, and a lack of drinking water can result in a number of other problems, which we discuss below.

Hunger: If there is no water that can be used in order to help water the crops, then you are going to have people that are going hungry. Animals will also die, which will result in a lack of meat as well. Water scarcity, in short, causes starvation to occur en masse for both people and animals that are located in the area.

Lack of Education: Water scarcity makes it difficult for people to get the education that they need or that they deserve. Why? Mainly, because those children are either too sick to go to school (which we will discuss below), or they are working to help get water to the home and the family.

Diseases: If you don't have clean water access, then you will be more likely to get diseases from the water that you do have. Whether you're drinking the water or using it for bathing, those diseases will get into the body and, in a number of cases, the people carrying those diseases will pass away.

Sanitation Issues: Without access to clean water, there is no way to clean food, dishes, or people. When people are not given access to proper sanitation, disease (which we talked about above) ends up becoming much more of an issue than it would have been otherwise. It also causes mental health issues, including depression and anxiety.

Poverty: All in all, people who are dealing with water scarcity are often stuck in poverty as well. These people are not able to get the resources that they need in order to be able to thrive, and instead are just barely surviving through these difficult times.

Solutions for Water Scarcity

Education: There are plenty of opportunities out there that people can use in order to learn more about the world around them. By educating those who are not dealing with water scarcity, they can be in a position to help. Those who are dealing with it can get educated on how they can prevent the problem from becoming even worse in the future.

Recycle Water: There are plenty of technologies out there that allow you to recycle rainwater and other water that you may be using in your home. Consider learning about how you can recycle water. Not only does it help to prevent scarcity, but it can save you some money as well.

Advance Technology Related to Water Conservation: There has been a lot of work in the world of water conservation, but there is also a lot that needs to be done in order to ensure that the rest of the world is able to conserve water. Putting money and effort into conservation could be life saving.

Improve Practices Related to Farming: Farming and irrigation are often a huge culprit when it comes to water scarcity. Because of that, we need to improve practices so that we don't use as much water and those who are using water are using it to its fullest potential. Technology also needs to advance in this manner.

Improve Sewage Systems: Clean drinking water starts with a good sewage system. Without proper sanitation, the water in an area becomes ridden with disease and any number of other problems. By improving the sewage systems in these areas, we can prevent water scarcity from becoming any worse.

Support Clean Water Initiatives: There are organizations located all over the world that are looking to bring clean water to areas that don't have it. Consider donating to these organizations, either with your time, your skills, or your finances (whichever you can afford to give to them).

So, as you can see, there are a lot of things that we need to consider when we're looking at water scarcity and how we can deal with it. If we start to look at this issue as a whole, and we work hard to make sure that we are able to make a difference when it comes to this widespread issue, we're going to be in a much better place to help people all over the world in preventing this issue from getting worse.

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Causes, Effects and Solutions of Water Scarcity - Conserve Energy Future

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There are millions of people all over the world who don't have access to water, or, if they have access, that water is unable to be used. About 70% of the Earth's surface is covered with water and 3% of it is actually freshwater that is fit for human consumption.

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One of the things that makes our planet special is the presence of liquid water. Water is fundamental for all life; without it every living thing would die. It covers about 70% of Earth's surface and it makes up 65-75% of our bodies (82% of our blood is water). Even though water seems boring - no color, taste, or smell - it has amazing properties that make it necessary for supporting life.

The chemical composition of water is - two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Water has special properties because of the way these atoms bond together to form a water molecule, and the way the molecules interact with each other.

When the two hydrogen atoms bond with the oxygen, they attach to the top of the molecule rather like Mickey Mouse ears. This molecular structure gives the water molecule polarity, or a lopsided electrical charge that attracts other atoms. The end of the molecule with the two hydrogen atoms is positively charged. The other end, with the oxygen, is negatively charged. Just like in a magnet, where north poles are attracted to south poles ('opposites attract'), the positive end of the water molecule will connect with the negative end of other molecules.

What does this mean for us? Water's polarity allows it to dissolve other polar substances very easily. When a polar substance is put in water, the positive ends of its molecules are attracted to the negative ends of the water molecules, and vice versa. The attractions cause the molecules of the new substance to be mixed uniformly with the water molecules. Water dissolves more substances than any other liquid - even the strongest acid! Because of this, it is often called the 'universal solvent.' The dissolving power of water is very important for life on Earth. Wherever water goes, it carries dissolved chemicals, minerals, and nutrients that are used to support living things.

Because of their polarity, water molecules are strongly attracted to one another, which gives water a high surface tension. The molecules at the surface of the water "stick together" to form a type of 'skin' on the water, strong enough to support very light objects. Insects that walk on water are taking advantage of this surface tension. Surface tension causes water to clump in drops rather than spreading out in a thin layer. It also allows water to move through plant roots and stems and the smallest blood vessels in your body - as one molecule moves up the tree root or through the capillary, it 'pulls' the others with it.

Water is the only natural substance that can exist in all three states of matter - solid, liquid, and gas - at the temperatures normally found on Earth. Many other substances have to be super-heated or -cooled to change states. The gaseous state of water is present continually in our atmosphere as water vapor. The liquid state is found everywhere in rivers, lakes, and oceans. The solid state of water, ice, is unique. Most liquids contract as they are cooled, because the molecules move slower and have less energy to resist attraction to each other. When they freeze into solids they form tightly-packed crystals that are much denser than the liquid was originally. Water doesn't act this way. When it freezes, it expands: the molecules line up to form a very 'open' crystalline structure that is less dense than liquid water. This is why ice floats. And it's a good thing it does! If water acted like most other liquids, lakes and rivers would freeze solid and all life in them would die.

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One of the things that makes our planet special is the presence of liquid water. Water is fundamental for all life; without it every living thing would die. It covers about 70% of Earth's surface and it makes up 65-75% of our bodies (82% of our blood is water).

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Water science school

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Capillary action, from USGS Water-Science School

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Information about capillary action, from the USGS Water Science School.

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https://youtu.be/ynN39sfqT8w

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Reasons why there is a global water crisis

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Reasons why there is a global water crisis

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A man sits by the river in Garbahaarey town in the Gedo region of Somalia. Photo by AMISOM Public Information/Flickr.

Droughts in Somalia. Water rationing in Rome. Flooding in Jakarta and Harvey-battered Houston. It doesn't take a hydrologist to realize that there is a growing global water crisis. Each August, water experts, industry innovators, and researchers gather in Stockholm for World Water Week to tackle the planet's most pressing water issues.

What are they up against this year? Here's a quick rundown on the growing global water crisis.

1) We're Changing the Climate, Making Dry Areas Drier and Precipitation More Variable and Extreme.

Climate change is warming the planet, making the world's hottest geographies even more scorching. At the same time, clouds are moving away from the equator toward the poles, due to a climate-change driven phenomenon called Hadley Cell expansion. This deprives equatorial regions like sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central America of life-giving rainwater.

Paradoxically, climate change is also increasing precipitation in other areas, and people who live near rivers and streams have the most to lose. Currently, at least 21 million people worldwide are at risk of river flooding each year. That number could increase to 54 million by 2030. All countries with the greatest exposure to river floods are least developed or developing countries - which makes them even more vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters. This summer, extreme flooding submerged over a third of Bangladesh, claiming over 115 lives and affecting 5.7 million citizens.

2) More People + More Money = More Water Demand.

It's a simple equation: As populations increase and incomes grow, so does water demand. The world's population, now at 7.5 billion, is projected to add 2.3 billion more people by 2050. How can the planet satisfy their thirst? Growing incomes also exacerbate the water problem, because of the water-intensive products-like meat and energy from fossil fuels -that richer populations demand.

3) Groundwater Is Being Depleted.

About 30 percent of Earth's fresh water lies deep underground in aquifers. And it's extracted daily for farming, drinking and industrial processes - often at dangerously unsustainable rates. Nowhere is this more evident than India, which guzzles more groundwater than any other country. 54 percent of India's groundwater wells are decreasing, meaning that water is used faster than it's replenished. Unless patterns shift, in 20 years, 60 percent of India's aquifers will be in critical condition.

Unlike an incoming hurricane or a drained lake, the naked eye cannot see when groundwater reserves in aquifers are declining. Global water supplies are susceptible to this hidden and growing threat.

4) Water Infrastructure Is in a Dismal State of Disrepair.

Having enough water to go around is only the beginning. That water also needs to be transported, treated, and discharged. Around the world, water infrastructure―treatment plants, pipes, and sewer systems―is in a state of disrepair. In the United States, 6 billion gallons of treated water are lost per day from leaky pipes alone. Built infrastructure is notoriously expensive to install and repair, meaning that many localities ignore growing infrastructure issues until disaster strikes, as it did in California earlier this year.

5) And Natural Infrastructure Is Being Ignored.

Heavy machinery removing trees in Ecuador. Flickr/CIFOR

Healthy ecosystems are " natural infrastructure" and vital to clean, plentiful water. They filter pollutants, buffer against floods and storms, and regulate water supply. Plants and trees are essential for replenishing groundwater; without them, rainfall will slide across dry land, instead of seeping into the soil. Loss of vegetation from deforestation, overgrazing and urbanization is limiting our natural infrastructure and the benefits that it provides. Forested watersheds around the world are under threat: watersheds have lost up to 22 percent of their forests in the past 14 years.

6) Water Is Wasted.

Although it's true that water is a renewable resource, it's often wasted. Inefficient practices like flood irrigation and water-intensive wet cooling at thermal power plants use more water than necessary. What's more, as we pollute our available water at an alarming rate, we also fail to treat it. About 80 percent of the world's wastewater is discharged back into nature without further treatment or reuse. In many countries, it's cheaper to receive clean drinking water than to treat and dispose of wastewater, which encourages water waste. This brings us to the next issue:

7) The Price Is Wrong.

Globally, water is seriously undervalued. Its price does not reflect the true, total cost of service, from its transport via infrastructure to its treatment and disposal. This has led to misallocation of water, and a lack of investments in infrastructure and new water technologies that use water more efficiently. After all, why would a company or government invest in expensive water-saving technologies, when water is cheaper than the technology in question? When the price of receiving clean water is closer to its actual service cost, efficient water use will be incentivized. And on the flip side, the poor often end up paying disproportionately high prices for water, stunting development.

It's Not Too Late

Amidst these seven deadly water sins, there is good news: governments, businesses, universities and citizens around the world are waking up to water challenges, and beginning to take action. Each year brings more solutions - like using wastewater for energy, using restoration to bring water back to dry topographies, and monitoring groundwater levels more closely. However, even the best solutions will not implement themselves. Along with fresh water, political will and public pressure are critical resources in ensuring a sustainable future for all.

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7 Reasons We're Facing a Global Water Crisis

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Droughts in Somalia. Water rationing in Rome. Flooding in Jakarta and Harvey-battered Houston. It doesn't take a hydrologist to realize that there is a growing global water crisis. Each August, water experts, industry innovators, and researchers gather in Stockholm for World Water Week to tackle the planet's most pressing water issues.

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You are here

We've landed!

With your support over the past year, we have expanded upon the efforts made by Aguayuda to address the vast need for water, sanitation and improving hygiene practice in Wayuu communities.

Meet the locals

Ana Pushaina and Liz Estela live 15 miles away from each other in La Guajira, Colombia, yet they share many similarities. Both women are grandmothers, caretakers, and breadwinners for their families who lack one of the most basic necessities, clean water. These women rely on clean water for the well being of their families. With your ongoing support, we will establish and maintain access to safe and clean water for their families and many more in La Guajira.

Impact

Your impact has allowed us to improve the quality of life in the La Guajira region of Columbia, by installing 15 water filters which have benefitted 2,553 people across La Guajira. We have conducted water quality testing and provided WASH education in 22 communities and 2 schools, reaching over 1,000 students with Hygiene and Education programs in schools.

With your ongoing support, we will

1. Increase access to water for domestic use(e.g. Household, livestock and vegetable gardens) with a focus on renewable energy sources such as windmill and solar pumps.

2. Providing hygiene education through WASH training and improved sanitation practices and facilities.

3. Strengthening networks and alliances with key actors for greater influence and impact in the WASH sector at local, regional and national levels.

What's next?

We have identified two new micro-regions, Manaure and Maicao in which we will continue to expand upon Aguayuda's work. We will continue to support the La Guajira region and form alliances with local, national governmental agencies and civil societies to maximize our impact.

Thank you

Your support has empowered Anna and those in her community for generations to come.

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With your support over the past year, we have expanded upon the efforts made by Aguayuda to address the vast need for water, sanitation and improving hygiene practice in Wayuu communities. Ana Pushaina and Liz Estela live 15 miles away from each other in La Guajira, Colombia, yet they share many similarities.

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The Global Water Crisis | How Much Water Do We Really Use Everyday? | TakePart

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I am water

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Climbing a narrow, switchback road carved into a sheer Andean mountainside, my 4-wheel-drive Jeep slowly rose past the tree line to an elevation of 10,000 feet. There the gravel road ended and I found myself on the fringe of Colombia's SanturbÃ¡n pÃ¡ramo, one of the world's strangest ecosystems.

Walking out on a windswept, frigid swamp, with clouds swirling overhead, I slowly took in the eerie pÃ¡ramo landscape as brief bursts of sunlight

broke through the gloom. Dotted with lakes, the pÃ¡ramo was covered in grasses and scrubby plants.

Like 34 other high-elevation, neotropical ecosystems that make up Colombia's archipelago of pÃ¡ramos, SanturbÃ¡n is a repository of large amounts of rain generated by colliding air currents. These storehouses are the primary sources of clean water for numerous cities, including the capital, BogotÃ¡; Cali; Medellin; and Bucaramanga, located roughly 25 miles west of SanturbÃ¡n.

But pÃ¡ramos are special for another reason: Many lie near precious metal deposits and are being targeted for large-scale projects to mine gold and other minerals. Two of the biggest projects on the drawing boards are gold mines planned near SanturbÃ¡n by Canada-based Eco Oro Minerals and

Colombia's current president has put the brakes on many mining megaprojects.

Brazil-based AUX, part of the natural resources empire controlled by Brazilian mining and oil billionaire Eike Batista.

Desperate for foreign investment, the government of former President Alvaro Uribe granted hundreds of preliminary mining permits from 2002 to 2010, many of them for projects located close to or, some say, within pÃ¡ramo limits. Companies like Eco Oro and AUX have since spent millions of dollars on engineering studies in anticipation of ultimately getting the green light to start mining.

But Colombia's current president, Juan Manuel Santos, who governs at a time when the Colombian economy is booming, has put the brakes on many mining megaprojects, heeding the concerns of environmentalists and municipal officials that many of the projects would threaten delicate pÃ¡ramo ecosystems and endanger water supplies. Santos has suspended all new mine permitting until environment minister Luz Helena Sarmiento issues new, more precise guidelines, which she is expected to release in coming weeks.

Although Colombian law forbids mining within pÃ¡ramo limits, it is vague on their definition. (PÃ¡ramo ecosytems - concentrated mainly in the Andean regions of Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Venezuela - generally range from about 9,000 feet to 15,000 feet in elevation.) The environment ministry in 2011 commissioned the Alexander von Humboldt Institute, a BogotÃ¡-based biological research foundation partly financed by the government, to come up with a more comprehensive definition of pÃ¡ramos. The Humboldt study, which has not been made public, was presented to Sarmiento late last year.

What could cause miners the greatest headache is if Sarmiento accepts the study's recommendation that the new pÃ¡ramo definition include a 400-meter (1,300-foot) "belt" or buffer that in effect would expand a pÃ¡ramo by that much altitude below the 9,000-foot elevation now generally considered off limits to mining, according to a Humboldt

Two proposed mines would use a cyanide-leaching process to extract gold, threatening water supplies.

Institute official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the issue.

"We are an institute that investigates biodiversity, and so our recommendations went for maximum protection of the pÃ¡ramos," said the official, a leader of the two-year study. "That's why we proposed a 'transition belt' below the pÃ¡ramo that we knew might impact existing miners."

The two proposed mining projects near SanturbÃ¡n have generated enormous controversy, as both almost certainly would use a cyanide-leaching process to extract gold, which could contaminate water supplies as they flow down from the SanturbÃ¡n pÃ¡ramo. Both the Eco Oro and AUX projects are located less than a mile west and downhill from the pÃ¡ramo. Ecologists fear that chemicals and tailings from the mine could pollute the Angostura River and underground aquifers, and that the impacts of mining in the remote area would inevitably spill over into the SanturbÃ¡n protected area.

On the other side are business interests and some local residents who want the jobs and economic benefits that the mining projects will generate.

Biologist Santiago Madrinan, a professor at University of the Andes in BogotÃ¡, says that once pÃ¡ramos regions are altered on a large scale, they rarely regain their water storage capacity. A cement plant built in the Chingaza pÃ¡ramo above BogotÃ¡ in the 1980s disturbed the ecosystem and has since contributed to increased flooding of BogotÃ¡ and other areas, he said.

Randall Scott, a botanist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff who studies Andean pÃ¡ramos, noted that mines in or near pÃ¡ramos in other countries have contaminated water supplies and said pÃ¡ramo water is too important for cities to put at risk.

"Water contamination - as has been experienced by folks in Cajamarca, Peru, due to the leach fields associated with the massive gold mine situated

A mining manager says his company has the technology 'to make sure water quality is not affected.'

directly above that city - is not just going to affect the immediate communities, but everyone downstream," Scott said. "And the impacts of mining will undoubtedly destroy numerous undocumented plant, insect,and other animal species well beyond the area of immediate impact."

Both AUX and Eco Oro insist that their projects don't pose threats to Bucaramanga's water supplies. "There is a lot of disinformation out there, " Carlos Alberto Londono, sustainability manager of AUX mining, said at the company's Bucaramanga offices. "We have not finished our hydrological studies, so it's premature to claim we would affect the water supply."

Londono also noted that a new dam and reservoir project on the Tomo River will provide Bucaramanga with a major new source of water. "Our project could - but not necessarily - affect 15 percent of the city's water supply, but we don't think it will," he said. "We have all the technology we need to make sure water quality is not affected."

In an interview, AUX executives said Colombia stands to lose significant economic benefits if mining projects are left in limbo as a result of the pending government guidelines for mining near pÃ¡ramos. They said the gold mine would bring $2.2 billion in investment to the region and employ 3,000 people in its initial phases.

AUX estimates that its mine near the SanturbÃ¡n pÃ¡ramo contains at least 8 million troy ounces of gold reserves worth more than $10 billion at today's prices. "The worst part of this process is the uncertainty and the social problems the delays have caused for the people we have had to lay off," said Londono "We are flexible, but our flexibility has limits."

Environment Minister Sarmiento's new guidelines on pÃ¡ramos could derail proposed mining projects elsewhere in Colombia, including AngloGold

PÃ¡ramos are `species pumps' where new life forms are established far faster than in most other ecosystems.

Ashanti's large-scale La Colosa gold mining project in Tolima state, sources said. And her decision will affect others besides mining companies and their employees. Sarmiento must determine how to financially compensate hundreds of Colombian families, mostly farmers, already living on pÃ¡ramos illegally and who presumably will be forced to relocate. Potato and onion farming have been a chief cause of pÃ¡ramo disturbances in SanturbÃ¡n and elsewhere in Colombia.

"She can't just say mining and farming is prohibited and adios," said the Humboldt Institute official, who added that SanturbÃ¡n farmers produce 80 percent of the region's onions. "She has to recognize the social complexity of the situation and propose economic alternatives for the people living there. No line, wherever it is drawn, is going to avoid that headache, so her job is not an easy one."
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Although pÃ¡ramos have been recognized by scientists since the 1700s, they are only now starting to attract serious study, and that research has turned up some astounding facts, according to Madrinan at the University of the

The mining of rare earth metals, used in everything from smart phones to wind turbines, has long been dominated by China. But as mining spreads to countries like Malaysia and Brazil, scientists warn of the dangers of the toxic and radioactive waste their mining and processing generates. READ MORE

Andes. Among the findings is that pÃ¡ramos are "species pumps" where new life forms are established far faster than in most other ecosystems, partly because pÃ¡ramos are constantly expanding and shrinking as climate conditions change. Roughly 5,000 plant species have already been identified in pÃ¡ramos ecosystems, including the pale green, furry frailejÃ³n, which aroused the curiosity of Alexander von Humboldt on his visit to Colombia in 1801. Madrinan noted that some pÃ¡ramos are already beginning to shrink as temperatures rise, and that intensifying climate change could further threaten these unique ecosystems.

Francisco Ciri, a BogotÃ¡-based independent biologist, said the expansion of the SanturbÃ¡n pÃ¡ramo's limits to include the 400-meter "belt" could very well derail major mining projects. But any new limits, he said, must be accompanied by better government vigilance against illegal mining, which already plagues other parts of Colombia and which often involves powerful criminal gangs and left-wing rebels.

The departure of legal miners from the SanturbÃ¡n pÃ¡ramo area would almost certainly create a vacuum that would be filled by illicit groups looking to exploit the rich mineral veins on which foreign investors like AUX and EcoOro have staked claims, Ciri said. "You have to assume that criminal activity will increase in an area where there is already high unemployment," Ciri said.

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Mining Showdown in Andes Over Unique PÃ¡ramo Lands

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High-altitude neotropical ecosystems known as pÃ¡ramos are increasingly at risk in Colombia and elsewhere in South America as major mining companies seek to exploit rich deposits of gold and other minerals. Such projects, scientists warn, could have serious impacts on critical water supplies.

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By Lorenzo Morales, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Fox News
Cogua is a small farming town surrounded by native forest in the middle of the Colombian Andes. Most of the people here make a good living growing potatoes and grazing their cows on the emerald green land. But this idyllic picture could change quickly.

"Our main problem here is that mining is booming without control and it's taking our water away," said Cogua mayor Javier Garzón, a big man with a black moustache and humble origins. He is battling to preserve the unique water source of the 20,000 people who live in his town from miners attracted by the growing demand for coal (especially from China and the United States) and its soaring price on the international market.

The water for his town and five nearby municipalities comes from the páramos, a unique highland ecosystem of the Andes, described by some as a "water factory." Its sponge-like soil and particular vegetation and geology capture water in the rainy season, acting as a natural buffer against floods. During the dry season, the páramos release water into hundreds of small creeks that feed crops and reservoirs.

In Guerrero, Cogua's surrounding páramo, the landscape is both breathtaking and alarming: a field of blossoming frailejones - an endemic plant with velvety leaves that capture the particles of water from the mist of these altitudes - is pierced by dozens of deep shafts and tunnels with piles of coal alongside. The mines are interconnected with an improvised network of trails that bulldozers and trucks use to move their loads of coal. Miners with faces covered in black dust gaze at strangers while streams flow dark with runoff from their excavations.

Like Guerrero, many of Colombia's remaining páramos are under siege. The recent mining boom is threatening ecosystems that are critical for the well-being of hundreds of small towns and even a few big cities. Páramos represent only two percent of Colombia's land, but provide water to 70 percent of its people.

"The water from the páramos is key for the development of our country," said Felipe Rubio Torgler, a biologist and researcher for the Alexander von Humboldt Institute, a government agency that in 2007 produced the first comprehensive atlas of the Colombian páramos. Rubio said that the páramos are the most fragile ecosystem in Colombia, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world.

During the eight-year administration of former president Alvaro Uribe, mining in Colombia expanded exponentially. Between 2002 and 2010, areas with mining titles skyrocketed from 2.8 million acres to 21 million, according to Ingeominas, the government agency in charge of granting the titles. At least 7 percent of the land in the páramos is now in hands of mining companies.

The new president, Juan Manuel Santos, has said he will use fiscal stimulus to give more steam to the "mining locomotive." Any attempt to slow down this train could prove costly: Today, 80 percent of foreign investment in Colombia goes to the mining and hydrocarbons sector, and that number keeps growing.

"I run short of time to process all the application requests from mining companies that are landing in the country," admitted Mines and Energy Minister Carlos Rodado, in a recent forum at Bogota's Chamber of Commerce.

Nevertheless, the Santos government has tried to calm fears that the mining interests will run roughshod over the country's ecological assets.

"One of the things that we have set very clearly is that in some regions mining is forbidden, especially there where water can be scarce," said Sandra Bessudo, National Adviser for the Environment, a new position created by President Santos. "A number of mining titles that were given in protected areas such as forest reserves and national parks will need to be revised," she added.

One of the tools Bessudo is counting on is a refurbished mining law approved by Congress in July 2009. The law prohibits any mining activity in the páramos, a development environmentalists claim as their biggest victory in years. However, in the unusually long time span of eight months between congressional approval and presidential sanction, more than 8.9 million acres of land were given to mining, much of it in areas now protected under the new law. Miners insist that their titles can't be reversed, challenging Bessudo's plan to revise those titles.

One of the most emblematic examples of this conflict is the Angostura Project, a proposed 2,700 acres open-pit excavation in the Santurbán páramo by Greystar Resources, a Canadian gold mining company that benefited from the legal limbo. While the company promises to create no environmental hazards, the cities of Bucaramanga and Cucuta have opposed the project, alleging that this high-altitude mine threatens the water supplies for the two million residents. On December 22, Colombia's General Inspector urged the government to block the project.

Despite the confidence of some that the new law has put a lock on areas that should be protected, rules are easily broken in Colombia. The country's territory is vast (53 times the size of El Salvador) and the government is weak. A confidential government document states that just in Chocó - one of the country's 32 provinces and one of the richest in water provisions and rainforest - there are about 848 square miles in the hands of illegal miners, mainly small-scale gold miners, who are well-known as heavy users of chainsaws, mercury and cyanide. To recover that land will cost some $80 million, according to the report. That is far more the annual budget of the Ministry of the Environment.

"Mining is a high-risk industry growing in Colombia at an exorbitant rate while national environmental institutions that are meant to regulate it are in their weakest shape in 15 years," said Guillermo Rudas, a researcher at the Universidad Externado in Bogotá who mapped official data of land with mining titles and land requested for mining over the last 20 years. In his report, he also shows how the budget for the environmental institutions in Colombia relative to GDP is today one-third of what it was in 1994.

The lack of government control over the small-scale mining industry is not only obvious in far-flung places.

"Welcome to Dante's Inferno," said Rubio when we drove the so-called "Coal Route" that besieges Rabanal, another patch of páramo in the centrally located province of Boyacá. Hundreds of archaic coal mines have visibly nibbled the mountain. Dozens of ovens for processing coke - a type of coal distilled in gigantic brick caldrons at more that 3600 degrees - belch out columns of black smoke that make throats itch and taint the trees and soil, day and night. The miners work in precarious conditions without health or safety guarantees.

Colombia is Latin America's principal coal producer. However, the coal from Guerrero or Rabanal is not a crucial part of Colombia's energy diet. Seventy percent of Colombia´s energy comes from hydropower plants, moved precisely by the force of the water that runs down the mountain from this threatened páramos.

"If this situation doesn´t stop, we will end up displaced, this time not by the guerrillas or any other armed group but from people like us who have exploited this land without control," said Mayor Garzón, sitting atop a mountain rock and looking down at his hometown in the green valley below. "We'll only have two options: leaving our homes or living in a desert".
This article was reprinted with the permission of the Pulitzer Center and Fox News Read more of Morale's work on mining in Colombia and see more photos by Pulitzer Center photographer Anna-Katarina Gravgaard.

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Fragile Páramo Ecosystem in Colombia Threatened by Coal and Gold Rush

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By Lorenzo Morales, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Fox News Cogua is a small farming town surrounded by native forest in the middle of the Colombian Andes. Most of the people here make a good living growing potatoes and grazing their cows on the emerald green land.

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Tanneries

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EU Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid Operations

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Clean water for the Wayuu people of Colombia (Spanish version)

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La Guajira, Colombia, is home to the indigenous Wayuu people. A humanitarian crisis has resulted from seven years of drought; in 2016, 86 children lost their lives. Today nearly 900 families are severely affected by drought. The Wayuu people are battling to survive: they face food and water shortages, as well as malnutrition.

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Winner of Spain's 2013 Telenatura Film Festival for "Best Conservation Film"!! At 2,640 meters, Bogotá, Colombia's capital, is home to more than eight million people who depend on the surrounding mountains for their water. Here one finds the páramos, a stunning landscape that's part of a natural machine that has sustained Bogotá for centuries.

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Colombia's páramos occupy just 1.7 percent of the national territory, yet they produce 85 percent of its drinking water. These rich sources of life are threatened by activities like large-scale mining, and their protection should be a point of national interest.

So just how does the magic happen? The páramos are high altitude wetlands. Despite being located in the equatorial zone, they remain cool throughout the year, which enables their soils to maintain rich volcanic nutrients. All these characteristics make the páramos true sponges that capture moisture from the atmosphere, purify water and regulate its flow.

The growth of the economy, the production of electricity and life itself are all made possible by the water provided by Colombia's páramos:

Life in all these cities depends on the páramos. That's why AIDA is committed to the protection of these valuable ecosystems. It's about defending our sources of fresh water, our right to live. This fight recently called us to:

Call the World Bank's attention to the risks of its investment in the Angostura mine, in the Santurbán páramo, which would harm both people and the environment.

Co-organize a seminar about páramos and mining at the Universidad Sergio Arboleda in order to discuss and understand the latest legal and technical regulations on the subject.

We Are Not Alone

Social movements in defense of water, life and páramos have blossomed across the country. The Committee for the Defense of Water and the Santurbán Páramo and the Committee for Cruz Verde are two strong examples. Greenpeace Colombia has also promoted the end of mining in the Pisba páramo in Boyacá.

Meanwhile, after many extensions, the Environmental Minister announced last December the delimitation of the Santurbán páramo. However, he also announced that mining projects that already had a title and an environmental license would be permitted to continue. The Canadian mining company Eco Oro then issued a public statement that, even with the delimitation of Santurbán, it would continue developing the Angostura mine on a smaller scale.

This delimitation opens the way for similar actions on which the recognition and protection of other Colombian páramos will depend.

As members of civil society we must remain vigilant so that such actions comply with national and international environmental and human rights standards. Our water, and therefore our life, is at risk.
Where will our fresh water come from in 2015, when our numbers are millions more? If we don't protect our páramos today, Colombia's future generations will be deprived of access to water. Current problems in Lima, Peru and São Paulo, Brazil remind us that this reality might not be too far away.

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Colombia's páramos occupy just 1.7 percent of the national territory, yet they produce 85 percent of its drinking water. These rich sources of life are threatened by activities like large-scale mining, and their protection should be a point of national interest.

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This article will discuss the five main properties of water:

1. Its attraction to polar molecules

2. High-specific heat

3. High heat of vaporization

4. The lower density of ice

5. High polarity

Cohesion

Cohesion, otherwise known as water's attraction to other water molecules, is one of the major properties of water. Water's polarity lends it to be attracted to other water molecules. The hydrogen bonds in water hold other water molecules together. Due to water's cohesiveness:

Liquid water has surface tension. This allows for insects, such as Water Striders, to walk on water.

Water is a liquid at moderate temperatures, and not a gas.

Adhesion

Water's attraction between molecules of a different substance is called adhesion. Water is adhesive to any molecule it can form hydrogen bonds with. Due to water's adhesiveness:

Capillary action occurs. For example, when you have a narrow tube in water, the water will rise up the tube because of water's adhesiveness to the glass "climbing" up the tube.

Water can moderate temperature because of the two properties: high-specific heat and the high heat of vaporization.

High-specific heat is the amount of energy that is absorbed or lost by one gram of a substance to change the temperature by 1 degree celsius. Water molecules form a lot of hydrogen bonds between one another. In turn, a lot of energy is needed to break down those bonds. Breaking the bonds allows individual water molecules to move freely about and have a higher temperature. In other words: if there are a lot of individual water molecules moving about, they'll create more friction and more heat, which means a higher temperature.

The hydrogen bonds between water molecules absorb the heat when they break and release heat when they form, which minimizes temperature changes. Water helps maintain a moderate temperature of organisms and environments.

Water takes a long time to heat up, and holds its temperature longer when heat is not applied.

Water's high heat of vaporization is the other property responsible for its ability to moderate temperature.

Water's high heat of evaporation is basically the amount of heat energy needed to change a gram of liquid into gas. Water also needs a lot of energy in order to break down the hydrogen bonds. The evaporation of water off a surface causes a cooling effect. Much like among humans-when we get hot, or energy inside our body is breaking chemical bonds, we sweat as a cooling effect. In this case, the same process occurs: as the water evaporates off the the surface of the skin, it cools down the surface.

At cooler temperatures, the hydrogen bonds of water molecules form ice crystals. The hydrogen bonds are more stable and will maintain its crystal-like shape. Ice-the solid form of water-is less dense than water because of the hydrogen bonds being spaced out and being relatively apart. The low density is what allows icebergs to float and are the reason that only the top part of lakes are frozen.

Water is a polar molecule that has a high level of polarity and attraction to ions and other polar molecules.

Water can form hydrogen bonds, which make it a powerful solvent. Water molecules are attracted to other molecules that contain a full charge, like an ion, a partial charge, or polar. Salt (NA+ CL-) dissolves in water. Water molecules surround the salt molecules and separate the NA+ from the CL- by forming hydration shells around those two individual ions.

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This article will discuss the five main properties of water: Its attraction to polar molecules High-specific heat High heat of vaporization The lower density of ice High polarity Cohesion, otherwise known as water's attraction to other water molecules, is one of the major properties of water.

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Water Changes Everything | charity: water

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Water, or H2O, is an unusual compound with amazing properties. Find out what makes water essential for all forms of life on Earth!

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Mining in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia

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Mining in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia

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Amazon slowly eaten away by gold rush's illegal mines

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Seen from above, the Amazon resembles a huge billiards table-a field of intense green pockmarked by brown stains.

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https://youtu.be/JXoQQB0_3SM

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The benefits of mining to everyday life, everywhere - Minedex

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Mining has always had its critics. There are groups who believe mining in certain locations, or mining some commodities, should be banned. There are also groups who believe the damage mining causes to the environment justifies it being banned entirely. Throw climate change protest groups into the mix and the number of people opposed to..

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Illegal gold mining is polluting water sources in northern Colombia, reported Colombian newspaper El Heraldo Monday.

According to the report, illegal mining has contaminated water sources in the northern department of Cordoba including the San Jorge River with high levels of mercury.

Mining has devastated the environment throughout the country, but particularly in the northern departments of Antioquia, Sucre and Cordoba. Colombia releases 130 tons of mercury annually, making it the world's highest per capita mercury polluter from artisanal gold mining, according to a study led by UN mining advisor Marcello Veiga.

According to Sandra Bessudo, Minister for Biodiversity, it would cost around $10.8 billion and take anywhere from 25 to 40 years to repair the environmental damage caused by the deforestation and contamination of mining sites.

Miners use liquid mercury to separate gold from river sediments, a process during which a very toxic compound, mercury-cyanide, is formed and then dumped into local creeks. According to the Environmental Police, every gram of extracted gold requires two grams of mercury, about 80% of which is discarded with other excess waste.

Mercury is a heavy metal that is harmful when inhaled, ingested or touched. Mercury poisoning is transmittable from mother to fetus and can damage the brain and central nervous system.

"In this region you are already seeing deformed newborns, which is directly linked with the presence of mercury in wetlands that are important to our biodiversity," said Colombian president Juan Manual Santos.

The illegal mines do not adhere to the worker safety regulations or environmental protection protocol that the government requires of legal mining sites, resulting in hazardous working conditions.

Apart from environmental concerns, illegal gold mining has far-reaching political implications as the practice has become a lucrative source of income for several illegal armed groups.

President Santos has referred to illegal mining as "a cancer that must be removed," and as a "criminal practice that has not only generated pressures and extortion for legal miners, but that has also caused disastrous damage to our environment."

The Santos Administrated has made 295 arrests for illicit exploitation of mineral deposits this year alone, as part of a larger program targeting illegal mining.

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Illegal mining contaminates water in northern Colombia

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Illegal gold mining is polluting water sources in northern Colombia, reported Colombian newspaper El Heraldo Monday. According to the report, illegal mining has contaminated water sources in the northern department of Cordoba including the San Jorge River with high levels of mercury.

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The effects of human thoughts and words on water.

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The effects of human thoughts and words on water.

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The Effects of Human Thoughts, and Words on WATER... WOW!

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Purchase YouAreCreators best selling books here: ►222 Prosperity Affirmations: http://geni.us/2HhW7 ►I Wish I Knew This 20 Years Ago: http://geni.us/wZx6 ►The Little Book Of Successful Secrets: http://geni.us/qWsNN09 ►The Mind Of Money: http://geni.us/MJXJBr Download FREE Law Of Attraction books/Mp3's here: http://youarecreators.org/ ★ Purchase YouAreCreators Posters and Sweatshirts here → http://youarecreators.org/shop/ ★ Download the YouAreCreators Manifestation Reminder on your app store now!

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Campaign 2015

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Water Changes Everything | Water Campaign 2015

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Water Changes Everything | Water Campaign 2015 Clean Water Campaign 2015 | Water Campaign For Charity Water: Let people everywhere in the world have access to clean water! Charity Water - Water Campaign Donate Here: https://my.charitywater.org/7421max-charity-water-campaign USE CODE "7421" FOR A DISCOUNT ON CUSTOM CONTROLLERS!: http://cinchgaming.com/custom.php FIFA 15 AUTOBUYER/AUTOBIDDER HERE: http://futmillionaire.com/?hop=7421max Thumbnail Maker: https://www.youtube.com/user/marcelcarpz1 Thanks for watching this 7421max video.

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Public Story Evidalia´s tale: the tanners of the river

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Public Story Evidalia´s tale: the tanners of the river

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The Implementation of the Human Right to Water in Argentina and Colombia - ScienceDirect

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El artículo aborda el reconocimiento del acceso al agua como derecho humano en diversos instrumentos jurídicos internacionales, ofreciendo una perspectiva comparativa de la práctica en Argentina y Colombia. El ensayo explora el derecho humano al agua proporcionando nuevos elementos de juicio acerca de la justiciabilidad del derecho al agua a la luz de recientes fallos emitidos por la Corte Constitucional colombiana y diferentes sentencias dictadas por tribunales argentinos.

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What If Earth Ran Out Of Water And Food?

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With climate change ruining various areas of the world, what will we do when we start running out of food and water? Watch More: Why Did NASA Release Water into Space? ►►►► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRCqoFmbOLk Support Life Noggin on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LifeNogginStudios?ty=h Follow Us! https://twitter.com/LifeNoggin https://facebook.com/LifeNoggin Click here to see more videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/lifenoggin Life Noggin is a weekly animated educational series.

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Read the latest magazines about 1 page Goals Comics - full set PDF and discover magazines on Yumpu.com

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Promovemos el uso de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible en el aprendizaje para que los niños puedan contribuir a un futuro mejor para todos. Desde la ciudadanía y la justicia hasta el cambio climático y el medio ambiente, ¡inspira a los niños a marcar la diferencia!

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Sony Pictures | The Best in Movies, TV Shows, Games & Apps

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Watch trailers, play games, download apps and learn more about Sony Pictures Entertainment movies and television shows.

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Objetivos y metas de desarrollo sostenible

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El 25 de septiembre de 2015, los líderes mundiales adoptaron un conjunto de objetivos globales para erradicar la pobreza, proteger el planeta y

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With global gold prices skyrocketing, illegal goldmines are cropping up all over Colombia.

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Article that describes the process of mining for Gold. Excellent!

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Article that describes the process of mining for Gold. Excellent!

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Especial: Minería ilegal, problemática ambiental y económica - Especial - El Tiempo

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Desde el espacio, a 702 kilómetros de altura, satélites de la Nasa revelan el crecimiento de un cáncer que, literalmente, se está comiendo la tierra y los ríos

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A Long Walk to Water. (Real life story with characters anecdotes and authors interview)

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A Long Walk to Water. (Real life story with characters anecdotes and authors interview)

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3 Real Stories that will forever change the way you look at water

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3 Real Stories that will forever change the way you look at water

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Editor's Note: In honor of World Water Day, we asked Tyler Riewer-content strategist at charity: water, a New York-based nonprofit that works to bring clean water to developing countries-to share his top three stories from his travels around the world.
It's hard to fathom. The idea of waking up before sunrise every morning and spending hours walking just to find a water source. Standing in line to access a muddy hole in the ground that you share with both your neighbors and their livestock. Carrying 40 pounds of dirty water all the way home on your back and then serving it to the people you love most. Constantly suffering from stomach pain and diarrhea. Losing children to water-related diseases.

It's a world most of us don't know. And yet, it's the reality for 748 million people around the world-748 million! That's nearly 10 percent of everyone living on this planet.

You and I got lucky. We're the other 90 percent. We happened to be born in places where we've never had to worry about finding water or deal with the fear that our water might affect the health of our families.

But that doesn't mean their stories can't impact us.

Over the past two years, I've visited eight countries that were in need of clean water. I've camped in rural communities, shared meals inside people's homes, and met some of the most courageous, driven, and inspiring people I've ever known.

I'd like to tell you three of the stories that stuck with me most.

1. Life in the Desert

What no one told me about Niger is that it's practically the Sahara Desert. Truly. One hundred and fifteen degrees, sandy, dry, and brutal. And there's no place to escape any of it. The only available water in a place like this lies in 100-year-old holes in the ground, and the women have no choice but to hoist it out by rope, one bucket a time. As a result, their hands are gnarly, shredded, calloused, and hard.

On one of our final days, I followed a 26-year-old woman named Fadoum through part of her morning, just to see and capture what it was like. She described it for me in advance: waking up before sunrise to collect water, cooking breakfast, going to collect more water, pounding grain for lunch and dinner, and then collecting water again. But witnessing it was another story. I got to see all of the no-big-deal things that she left out: bathing and dressing her daughters, feeding her goats, cleaning her home. It was amazing. And it was also painfully exhausting.

After an hour, I asked when she got time to rest. Fadoum laughed. "There's no time for rest!"

"What's your favorite part of the day?" I continued. Without missing a beat, she looked up at me and replied in total seriousness: "Anytime I'm not pulling water."

2. The Danger of Walking for Water

Eastern Uganda is how I imagine Hawaii in the early 1970s: a less-modern kind of paradise. Lush hills thick with green. Fruit stands packed with pineapple, mango, watermelon, and avocado. It's beautiful, and just the right amount of hot.

But it's an eerie contrast to life in a rural community without clean water. Women here walk up to six miles along dense, marshy paths to reach a polluted lake that's home to snakes and crocodiles. Every person in the village knows someone who has been killed by one or the other, and many have seen it happen. Even that isn't as scary as the walk itself, which leaves women exposed to human predators (such as passing fishermen) who may be lurking in the bushes.

The family we met and became close with during our week in Uganda had two daughters who had been sexually assaulted by men while walking to collect water. At 14 and 17, both became pregnant after being raped. Both chose to have their children. Both were forced to drop out of school. Both are now single mothers living at home with a very different future than they had dreamed of as young girls.

These girls were victims. But their attitudes remained incredibly inspirational. Though they live in a society that looks down on unwed mothers, their family responded with love.

And they both said that if it means other communities in Uganda will receive access to clean water and girls can live without fear, they want their story to be told.

3. The Most Inspiring 15-Year-Old I've Ever Met

By the time we reached our first village in Mozambique, a small crowd had already gathered around the water point. They were eager to talk about the difference clean water had made in their community.

At the front of the pack, neatly lined up in matching blue T-shirts, were five members of the local water committee (a team responsible for taking care of the water access and educating the community about health and sanitation). One by one, the men and women introduced themselves: a chairman, mechanic, tax collector, health and hygiene officer. And then the final introduction, which came from a seemingly shy 15-year-old girl at one end.

"My name is Natalia. I'm the President."

Ahem. I don't know what your reaction to that was just now, but I had to pick my jaw up off the ground. I've visited more than 25 communities with charity: water, and never had I met a 15-year-old water committee president before.

What it came down to was Natalia's education, leadership, and work ethic. Having access to clean water gives her more time to spend in school, and as a result, she's become better educated than many of the adults in her community. Now she's a leader.

At one point in the trip, I asked Natalia's mother what she wanted for her daughter's future. "Our dream is for Natalia to become a teacher," she said proudly.

Overhearing the conversation, Natalia whipped around to respond: "I don't want to be a teacher; I want to be the headmaster!"

Over and over again, I've met people in the field who have told me that water is life. And I don't think I understood the depth of that right away. I knew that having access to clean water would immediately improve health and make life easier and safer-but the incredible takeaway for me has been that getting clean water for the first time brings the start of a new life.

Healthier kids spend more time in school. Healthier families save money on hospital bills. It's exponential. Better opportunities. Stronger economies. Future leaders. An end to poverty.

Water is where it all begins.

Knowing that...how can we, the 90 percent who got lucky, not do something to help the 748 million people who didn't?

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3 Stories That Will Forever Change the Way You Look at Water

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Editor's Note: In honor of World Water Day, we asked Tyler Riewer-content strategist at charity: water, a New York-based nonprofit that works to bring clean water to developing countries-to share his top three stories from his travels around the world. It's hard to fathom.

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Five tanneries of the Department of Quindìo, in the central area of the country, all with over twenty years of experience, have merged into a single large company - Leather Andina - with the purpose of entering the high-end market. The local economy is mainly devoted to coffee production and leather remains an active but secondary resource, fragmented into many small businesses (about 130) which struggle to organize production processes, to the point that almost 80% of the local raw materials is sold raw to tanneries of other regions of the country or abroad. These five tanneries are convinced that it's more profitable exporting the final product to industries that operate in the mid-to high-end segment rather than confining themselves to the low profit margin of raw products. The new market requires, however, a more convincing partner than the single company, hence the need of a strong partnership. Thanks to the help of the Chamber of Commerce and INNpulsa Colombia (governmental emanation to promote enterprises, innovation and productivity), which supported the project, the company invested two million dollars in technology and machinery, with the purpose of doubling exports within three years.

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Leather Andina: Colombian bet " Tannery Magazine

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Five tanneries of the Department of Quindìo, in the central area of the country, all with over twenty years of experience, have merged into a single large company - Leather Andina - with the purpose of entering the high-end market.

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Read "Evolutionary and Revolutionary Technologies for Mining" at NAP.edu

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Read chapter 2 Overview of Technology and Mining: The Office of Industrial Technologies (OIT) of the U. S. Department of Energy commissioned the National ...

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Thanks to all the recent headlines about the decline in commodity prices and the resulting difficulties being faced by virtually all companies involved in the mining sector, there has been a lot of speculation about the long term viability and sustainability of the industry.

To shed some light on the situation and to emphasize how critical the mining industry is to our way of life, below I have shared my personal opinion about the importance of mining and why it stands to be around for a very, very long time:

If it can't be grown, it has to be mined

We need to start from a basic statement: The modern world simply can't function without mining; Mineral products are essential components for cell phones, cars, energy towers, solar panels, wind turbines, fertilizers, machinery and all kinds of construction.

Just as an example, according to the US Mineral Information Institute, annually retired cell phones in US (around 130 million) contain almost 2,100 metric tons of copper, 46 metric tons of silver, 3.9 metric tons of gold, 2 metric tons of palladium, and 0.04 metric tons of platinum. Even knowing most of these materials can be recycled, it puts into perspective the amount of minerals required to build such devices.

In reality, the mining industry is just the starting point of an important value chain. According to another study, this one by the World Economic Forum, the entire mining and metals industry moves a 1 trillion dollar economy.

The mining industry is driven by fundamental forces

The population, urbanization and income growth will demand more buildings, cars, and consumer products, thereby increasing the needs for mined products as the building blocks of this growth.

Urbanization is a growth force for mining activities

Mineral substitutes are few and far between

One of the arguments for a potential decline in mining activities is around the use of substitutes - usually a mineral or metal product being substituted by other products of other origins. We have seen certain metals replaced by carbon fiber, and coal replaced by gas or other fuel sources. However, in general, there are limitations regarding metals and minerals substitution. A Yale study, after the evaluation of several metals used in various consumer products, reached the conclusion that "not one metal has an 'exemplary' substitute for all its major uses," and for some of them a substitute for each of its primary uses does not exist at all, or is inadequate.

Many countries need mining to not only thrive, but also to survive

Mining is the economic foundation for a number of developing countries. According to ICMM (International Council on Mining and Metals), at least 70 countries are extremely dependent on the mining industry and most low income countries need it to simply survive. This same study shows that in many low-middle income countries, mining accounts for as much as 60-90% of total foreign direct investment!

Mining is already a high-tech and sustainable industry

The top mining companies have made and continue to make massive investments in breakthrough technologies, such as autonomous systems, IoT (Internet of Things) and sensing technologies, adaptative supply chain, simulation, and the use of drones for environmental and production management. This silent revolution not only provides many operational benefits, but it also helps to attract new professionals arriving in the market and meets the demand by local communities for miners to provide a sustainable operation.
Conclusion
Despite the recent roller coaster in commodity prices, the mining industry is unlikely to lose its place in the global economy, and thanks to the world's constantly growing demand for the products that mining makes possible, it will even increase in significance as the years go by.

Want more proof of mining's enduring staying power? Click the link to visit Ngwenya Mine in Swaziland, the oldest mine in the world. How old? 43,000 years old and actively mined as recently as 1979!

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5 Reasons Why the World Needs Mining ...And Always Will - Schneider Electric Blog

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Thanks to all the recent headlines about the decline in commodity prices and the resulting difficulties being faced by virtually all companies involved in the mining sector, there has been a lot of speculation about the long term viability and sustainability of the industry.

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Minerals are central to our modern way of life. They are essential to producing materials for construction and manufacturing, and NSW has an abundance of these vital minerals.

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https://youtu.be/sc1GuKqIUa0

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Many Americans recognize that minerals are a part of their daily lives, but they might be shocked to find out that they personally depend on more than 38,000 pounds of new minerals annually-that's more than 100 pounds of minerals per day.

While minerals are frequently used to create the materials used in the construction of roads and buildings, they also serve as critical components in the manufacturing of high-tech electronics, next-generation vehicles and other everyday devices. Below are a few key highlights from the graphic below:

314 lbs. of iron ore is used to make steel - buildings, cars, trucks, planes, trains; other construction; other containers.

As an integral component in the formation of steel, iron ore is the world's most commonly used metal and critical to nearly every industry, from energy and construction to transportation and equipment manufacturing. Being an essential component in the production of steel, iron ore is the backbone of many industries and is an economic stimulant in the U.S., with an estimated value of $5 billion and supporting nearly 21,000 jobs across the country.

12 lbs. of copper is used in buildings; electrical and electronic parts; plumbing; and transportation.

Globally, the demand for copper is growing, as it is increasingly used in the development of advanced technology and electronics. For example, nearly five tons of copper is needed to make just one wind turbine, and it is a critical component in lithium-ion batteries and the wiring that powers hybrid vehicles.

7 lbs. of zinc is used to make metals rust resistant, in various metals and alloys, paint, rubber, skin creams, health care and nutrition.

Most commonly known as a key ingredient in sunscreen and skin creams, zinc plays an important role in the manufacturing of construction materials and transportation technologies. Additionally, zinc is an integral mineral present in many everyday products, like patio furniture and children's toys.

Beyond these minerals and those shown below, minerals of all kinds serve as the foundation of innovation and manufacturing. For more information on minerals' daily use and essential applications, check out our online toolkit here.

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We Depend on Minerals Everyday - Minerals Make Life

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Minerals Make Life is a National Mining Association initiative created to share information about domestic minerals mining and its importance to the economy, innovation for the future and national security. This initiative will educate America's policymakers, influencers and the public, and enable them to make informed decisions about U.S. mining.

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Coal Mining's Environmental Impact | From The Ashes

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https://youtu.be/NcvRUdBxENw

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https://youtu.be/6RhtiPefVzM

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https://prezi.com/bjihegcszh2s/a-long-walk-to-water/

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El término contaminación se refiere a la introducción de cualquier agente -químico, físico o biológico- cuya presencia o acumulación tiene efectos nocivos en el entorno natural, la salud y el bienestar de las personas.

Se trata de sustancias ajenas al entorno al que se incorporan, que pueden afectar la calidad del aire, el agua y/o el suelo. La magnitud de su impacto generalmente depende de una combinación de aspectos como la cantidad, el tipo de contaminante, la vía de ingreso y el tipo de medio al que se incorporan.

Se dice que el agua está contaminada cuando los agentes contaminantes repercuten negativamente en su calidad para el consumo humano, para usos posteriores o para el bienestar de los ecosistemas. Es la contaminación que ocurre en cualquier espacio que alberga agua: ríos, lagos, acuíferos o incluso el mar.

Al ser una molécula polar, el agua tiene gran capacidad de establecer enlaces de hidrógeno con otras moléculas. Debido a esto puede diluir un gran número de sustancias por lo que es considerada el " disolvente universal". Esta característica hace que los contaminantes, principalmente los químicos que llegan a este recurso, por vertidos o arrastre, alteren en forma significativa su calidad.

En las cuencas el ciclo del agua, las corrientes y los ciclos biogeoquímicos, participan en un proceso natural de depuración de los contaminantes en los cuerpos de agua - Ciclo de depuración de los cuerpos de agua -, sin embargo cuando su concentración o cantidad exceden ciertos niveles, la capacidad natural de autodepuración, no es suficiente para revertir las afectaciones.

La contaminación debida al arrastre de hojarasca, partículas, o por el ingreso de gases atmosféricos transportados por la lluvia, es mínima en comparación con la contaminación que se genera por las actividades humanas.

En algunos lugares, los problemas de contaminación del agua datan de siglos atrás (p. ej. el río Nilo), sin embargo esto no había sido un problema que alcanzara las dimensiones actuales. De acuerdo a la Organización Mundial de la Salud, dos millones de toneladas de aguas residuales junto con residuos industriales se descargan diariamente en los cuerpos de agua; de hecho se calcula que actualmente se producen 1 500 km ³ de aguas residuales, un volumen seis veces mayor que el volumen total de los ríos del planeta.

Definiciones

Un agua está contaminada cuando se ve alterada su composición o estado, directa o indirectamente, como consecuencia de la actividad humana, de tal modo que quede menos apta para uno o todos los usos a que va destinada, para los que sería apta en su calidad natural (C.E.E. de las Naciones Unidas, 1961).

La contaminación consiste en una modificación, generalmente, provocada por el hombre, de la calidad del agua, haciéndola impropia o peligrosa para el consumo humano, la industria, la agricultura, la pesca y las actividades recreativas, así como para los animales domésticos y la vida natural (Carta del Agua, Consejo de Europa, 1968).

Por contaminación se entiende generalmente una presencia de sustancias químicas o de otra naturaleza en concentraciones superiores a las condiciones naturales. Entre los contaminantes más importantes se encuentran los microbios, los nutrientes, los metales pesados, los químicos orgánicos, aceites y sedimentos; el calor también puede ser un agente contaminante, al elevar la temperatura del agua" (WWAP, 2009).

¿Qué provoca la conta minación del agua?

Hay varios factores que provocan la contaminación del agua:

El vertido de desechos industriales sin tratamiento.

El vertido de desechos municipales (aguas residuales) sin tratar.

El aumento en la temperatura del agua que ocasiona la disminución de oxígeno en su composición.

La deforestación y erosión del suelo.

El uso de pesticidas y fertilizantes.

Arrojar desechos sólidos a los cuerpos de agua.

Tipos de contaminantes

Los contaminantes físicos son principalmente sólidos o materiales en suspensión, cuyos impactos en los ecosistemas dulceacuícolas, son consecuencia de la obstrucción de la luz que generan.

Por otra parte, el calor proveniente de industrias que utilizan el agua para el enfriamiento de sus equipos o que descargan agua o líquidos a altas temperaturas, interfiere en los ciclos de crecimiento y reproducción de las especies presentes y disminuye la solubilidad de los gases en el agua.

También el ruido que generan turbinas o sonares de las embarcaciones es considerado contaminación física y tiene su principal impacto en la desorientación de mamíferos.

Los contaminantes químicos pueden ser de origen inorgánico o bien de origen orgánico.

La contaminación inorgánica consiste en el aporte de nutrientes, detergentes y metales que llegan a los cuerpos de agua. Algunos metales o metaloides son los compuestos químicos más preocupantes; el cadmio (Cd), cromo (Cr), mercurio (Hg), níquel (Ni), plomo (Pb) y el arénico (As), junto con otros elementos como el fluoruro son contaminates potencialmente tóxicos y repercuten en el sistema nervioso central y en el riñón, además de que se les atribuyen alergias, intoxicación y en ocasiones para algunos,un carácter cancerígeno.

A grandes rasgos, los compuestos orgánicos se subdividen en naturales y sintéticos; los primeros producen mal olor y sabor, mientras los sintéticos son de origen industrial y son tóxicos, en esta categoría se encuentran los compuestos orgánicos persistentes (COP); residuos de plaguicidas (p. ej. fumigantes, fungicidas, insecticidas y herbicidas) que junto a los disolventes producidos por las actividades industriales, tienen principal impacto en el hecho de que son persistentes, bioacumulables, se transportan largas distancias y han sido relacionados con efectos cancerígenos.

Recientemente se ha detectado la presencia de compuestos potencialmente peligrosos, denominados "emergentes" que se derivan principalmente de descargas industriales o domésticas de agua. Aún no existe información sobre su abundancia e impacto por lo que en su mayoría no están regulados, pero se estima que algunos pueden ser persistentes. Entre estos, tal vez los que suscitan mayor preocupación son los fármacos, particularmente los antibióticos y las drogas.

Diversos tipos de patógenos como bacterias, protistas, helmintos y virus pueden encontrarse en agua. Algunos afectan a todas las personas, pero existen otros llamados oportunistas que impactan principalmente a grupos vulnerables como niños, ancianos y personas con enfermedades crónicas. La inmunidad a este tipo de organismos también depende de factores como la edad, el sexo y las condiciones de vida.

A nivel global, los patógenos han tenido un gran impacto en la salud de las personas, entre los más frecuentes están: Campylobacter sp., causante más importante de diarrea infecciosa y gastroenteritis de origen bacteriano en seres humanos; Vibrio cholerae, agente infeccioso del cólera; Salmonella sp. responsable de 16 millones de casos de diarrea al año.

Por otro lado, los brotes epidémicos ocasionados por virus también han tenido repercusiones importantes. Entre los ejemplos más notables se encuentra la epidemia que alcanzó los 230 mil casos de hepatitis, ocurrida en Nueva Delhi, India en los años de 1955 y 1956.

Origen de la contaminación

Las fuentes de contaminación pueden clasificarse en puntuales -fuentes localizadas-, como las descargas industriales y municipales; y no puntuales -fuentes no localizadas o difusas- que son aquellas en las que no hay un punto exacto de descarga de contaminantes, por ejemplo los vertimientos provenientes de escorrentía de la industria agrícola y la filtración de agroquímicos.

La importancia de esta clasificación radica en el manejo de la contaminación, mientras la proveniente de fuentes puntuales puede ser controlada mediante acciones concretas, determinar las fuentes específicas de contaminación no puntual es sumamente complicado, y por tanto, identificar al responsable de la descarga, darle seguimiento, o controlarla.

La actividad agropecuaria

El sector agropecuario es el mayor consumidor de agua en el planeta, utiliza aproximadamente el 70 % del agua superficial. El agua utilizada en la agricultura, principalmente en las actividades de riego pasa a formar parte de los cuerpos superficiales y subterráneos. Para mantener los rendimientos agrícolas se hace uso de plaguicidas, abonos, fungicidas, herbicidas y fertilizantes, que se filtran hacia el acuífero, son arrastrados por las lluvias o vertidos intencionalmente al agua junto con restos orgánicos y sedimentos, haciendo a la agricultura la principal responsable de la contaminación por nitratos y fósforo. Por las enormes extensiones de suelo que ocupa, la agricultura es la principal fuente no puntual de contaminación del agua; se estima que en México se filtran aproximadamente 800 l/s del agua de riego utilizada.

Otros factores también contribuyen al deterioro de la calidad del agua por la actividad de este sector. Las prácticas inadecuadas, como la labranza del suelo, que lo deja sin cubierta vegetal, la ganadería y el mal manejo de sus residuos, y la inadecuada intervención de los gobiernos mediante programas de subsidios.

Los efectos de los fertilizantes y pesticidas en la salud humana y los ecosistemas, especialmente el suelo y el agua han sido ampliamente documentados. Los resultados muestran una problemática relevante derivada del poco conocimiento sobre su manejo y una baja percepción del daño real que ocurre por las malas prácticas con agroquímicos.

La industria

El agua es fundamental en los procesos industriales, ya sea como vehículo energético, de transporte, disolvente, en operaciones de lavado, intercambiadores de calor, etcétera. De esta forma, la contaminación industrial es la más diversa y a pesar de constituir fuentes generalmente puntuales, los vertimientos comúnmente no se tratan, de hecho, el 70 por ciento de los residuos industriales son vertidos sin tratamiento previo.

La presión que genera la industria sobre el agua está más relacionada con los impactos de las descargas de aguas residuales, que con la cantidad de agua requerida en los procesos de producción.

La contaminación industrial se caracteriza por su variedad de contaminantes, puede aportar contaminantes orgánicos, pero también industrias como la del petróleo, el acero y la minería representan el mayor riesgo en la liberación de metales pesados o compuestos tóxicos, sustancias persistentes y bioacumulables, que son transportadas a través del agua o la atmósfera, que además del peligro que representa para la salud humana y el ecosistema, se han encontrado alojadas en el tejido de peces y otras especies dulceacuícolas de importancia comercial, relevantes para la alimentación.

Los vertidos humanos

El problema de contaminación por el uso público del agua tiene dos grandes componentes: la contaminación por aguas grises y negras en los sistemas de alcantarillado, y la creciente producción de residuos sólidos junto a un mal manejo de los mismos. Este problema tiene su origen en la acelerada urbanización, particularmente del siglo XX, donde el crecimiento demográfico y la migración a las ciudades han hecho necesario replantear los enfoques de gestión de los residuos urbanos.

Algunos centros de población no tienen la infraestructura o carecen de un marco normativo para el adecuado tratamiento de las aguas residuales, por lo que muchas de estas se verterán a los ríos o cuerpos de agua cercanos; como se mencionó, en el mundo se producen anualmente seis veces más aguas residuales que la cantidad de agua de todos los ríos. Con esta concentración poblacional, la producción y mal manejo de residuos sólidos de las áreas urbanas ha exacerbado los problemas de contaminación. Los residuos domésticos comúnmente son concentrados por las familias en un solo contenedor, el cual es descargado a un solo camión recolector, y éste transporta los residuos a un solo sitio de disposición final. Así, la proporción de los residuos que se logran separar para ser reciclados o reutilizados es mínima.

Por lo que la constitución de rellenos sanitarios es el método más común para la deposición de residuos sólidos. Esto tiene diversas implicaciones: cuando las lluvias o sus escurrimientos atraviesan estos depósitos, arrastran sustancias tóxicas y patógenos al subsuelo; asimismo, es común que se establezcan rellenos sanitarios que no cumplen con las normas y características necesarias, o que incluso se realizan en zonas con otros usos de suelo. De esta forma los contaminantes se filtran a los cuerpos de agua subterráneos, o escurren a los cuerpos superficiales.

En las ciudades otro problema común deriva de la composición de los residuos, que son de composición heterogénea, y pueden incluir medicamentos caducos, residuos de sustancias químicas, de hospitales o de dispensarios médicos. Mientras que en los municipios o poblados pequeños, el servicio de recolección y disposición de los residuos sólidos es deficiente, con implicaciones importantes de salud pública; esto está directamente relacionado al saneamiento del que se disponga. Al igual que el acceso al agua potable, el saneamiento es un derecho humano.

Esta actividad se lleva a cabo tanto en aguas marinas, como continentales. A pesar de estar prohibido, es común que se descargue lastre, escombros, basura y aguas residuales, además del cloro y demás sustancias utilizadas para la limpieza de las embarcaciones. La navegación es la actividad que ocasiona más vertido de hidrocarburos al agua en el mundo. Además, la navegación es también la principal vía de introducción de especies invasoras, principalmente en las aguas utilizadas como lastre por las grandes embarcaciones.

Extracción intensiva de aguas subterráneas

En ocasiones la extracción intensiva en los cuerpos de agua profundos puede incidir en la circulación de metales nocivos, por ejemplo, los procesos de intrusión salina en zonas costeras, o el caso de las entidades del centro, oeste y noroeste de México, donde el agua tiene concentraciones de flúor superiores a las permisibles. En México se reportan 105 acuíferos sobreexplotados, en estos, la calidad de agua potable se encuentra además en riesgo de deterioro por el ingreso de agua de calidad no deseable que asciende hacia el nivel de extracción en los pozos. Asimismo, puede haber mineralización con exceso de algunos elementos que puede estar relacionada con la forma que en se administra la extracción: tiempo de bombeo, caudal de extracción y diseño de construcción del pozo.

Recuperación de los cuerpos de agua

Antes de recapitular los impactos más importantes de la contaminación del agua, hay que hacer mención de la susceptibilidad del cuerpos receptor a ser contaminado y a recuperarse naturalmente.

El tipo de cuerpo de agua es un elemento relevante que determina su exposición a la recepción de contaminantes. Al estar bajo el subsuelo, los acuíferos están menos expuestos al vertimiento directo de contaminantes, que las aguas superficiales de los ríos y lagos. La contaminación difusa sería más frecuente en los cuerpos de agua subterránea. Sin embargo, cuando por la fractura del terreno llegan a los acuíferos residuos químicos o industriales, como los provenientes de la minería, su impacto puede ser muy significativo.

En este contexto es importante considerar que la capacidad natural de dispersar o diluir los contaminantes que recibe un cuerpo de agua:

Será mayor en cuerpos de agua con mayor volúmen, en aquellos que se encuentran en zonas de alta precipitación o ubicados en regiones con un relieve abrupto.

Mientras mayor sea la contaminación previa, menor será la capacidad de depuración del cuerpo de agua; el tipo y cantidad de los vertidos que el ecosistema ha tenido que soportar con anterioridad, son determinantes.

La presencia o ausencia de ciertos organismos, puede o no favorecer la depuración del agua.

La contaminación tiene repercusiones en prácticamente todos los ámbitos de las actividades humanas y los procesos naturales.

Efectos en la salud humana

Sin duda contaminación tiene repercusiones en prácticamente todos los ámbitos de las actividades humanas, sin embargo su efecto en la salud de las personas ha sido una prioridad a nivel mundial.

Se han estimado en cinco millones las defunciones anuales como consecuencia de enfermedades transmitidas por el agua. Entre las que podemos destacar la diarrea, el cólera, la disentería, la fiebre tifoidea y la poliomielitis; estas enfermedades son la principal causa de muerte de menores de cinco años. En el caso de la diarrea, se calcula que la contaminación del agua provoca más de 502 mil muertes anuales; en México, en 2015 murieron 3 754 personas debido a enfermedades infecciosas intestinales.

La gran mayoría de los problemas de salud relacionados al agua se deben a la contaminación por microorganismos (bacterias, virus, protozoos u otros organismos), en especial los asociados con materia fecal. En el caso del agua superficial empleada para riego, en México el grupo de los coliformes fecales es el principal problema.

Aunado a esto, existe un número considerable de problemas graves de salud que pueden producirse como consecuencia de la contaminación química del agua de consumo, además de existir el riesgo de intoxicaciones crónicas asociadas a ésta. La contaminación por arsénico es considerada una amenaza para más de 140 millones de personas afectadas en 70 países de todos los continentes. El arsénico está asociado a lesiones en la piel y a enfermedades neurotóxicas, asimismo, la presencia de otros iones en cantidades peligrosas pueden causar problemas: el manganeso y el cromo están asociados a enfermedades neurotóxicas; el flúor, al deterioro del sistema óseo y los dientes; el sodio, a la hipertensión arterial.

Algunos impactos ambientales

La contaminación tiene un impacto directo en la biodiversidad, particularmente para los peces de agua dulce, más de la mitad de ellos se encuentran en peligro y tienen tasas de extinción hasta cinco veces mayores que las especies terrestres. En algunas regiones más del 50 por ciento de las especies de peces nativas se encuentra en peligro de extinción, lo mismo para cerca de un tercio de los anfibios del mundo.

Además, ya se ha relacionado la contaminación con especies asociadas a los cuerpos de agua interiores; en el planeta, el 24 por ciento de los mamíferos y 12 por ciento de las aves asociados a estos cuerpos están amenazados.

Por otro lado, existe pérdida de suelo por erosión y salinización en los suelos irrigados, lo que perjudica su capacidad productiva.

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El término contaminación se refiere a la introducción de cualquier agente -químico, físico o biológico- cuya presencia o acumulación tiene efectos nocivos en el entorno natural, la salud y el bienestar de las personas. Se trata de sustancias ajenas al entorno al que se incorporan, que pueden afectar la calidad del aire, el agua y/o el suelo.

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The longest river in the world, the Nile spans 35 degrees of latitude, drains three million square kilometers of land (one-tenth of the total surface area of Africa), and runs through 11 countries whose combined population totals over 300 million people: Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Nile's primary water source, Lake Victoria, is the world's second-largest body of fresh water, and the Nile Delta in northern Egypt covers over 150 miles of the Mediterranean coastline.

The Nile was the lifespring of ancient Egypt, the world's first great civilization, and it looms just as large in 21 st century geopolitics as it did 5,000 years ago. Many of the countries in the Nile's drainage area are challenged by poverty, deteriorating natural resources, and overpopulation. Modern Egypt's dependence on the Nile for irrigation and hydroelectric power (via the Aswan Dam) has historically driven the government of Egypt to raise concerns about development projects further south, along the Upper Nile valley.

Since 2000, we have been involved in the Nile River Basin Initiative (NBI), a regional intergovernmental partnership that seeks to develop the Nile in a cooperative manner and promote regional peace, water security, and sharing of socio-economic benefits. Some of the specific project work was with the NBI Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office (ENTRO). The mission was to help member countries (Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Sudan) with irrigation and drainage, flood control and early-warning systems, and various hydroelectric projects. Much of our time was spent helping build the NBI infrastructure-the systems by which government ministers and technicians communicate and coordinate with one another-which has given us a deep understanding of the political, social, economic, and climatological pressures that exist in this region of Africa.

Implementing the Nile Basin Decision Support System

A key component of the NBI, which we helped implement in 2008, is the Nile Basin Decision Support System (NB-DSS). This computerized system includes various toolsets for data processing, modeling, scenario management, and optimization and multi-criteria decision making. NB-DSS also gives users the ability to integrate environmental, social, and economic objectives, greatly facilitating multi-sector water resources planning at the river basin level. About 150 water resources engineers from the 11 NBI countries use the NB-DSS to inform their decision-making processes.

How does NB-DSS work? Here are three examples:

--The eastern tributary of the Nile, the Blue Nile, originates in Lake Tana, in Ethiopia, and joins the White Nile near the Sudanese city of Khartoum. Eighty percent of the flow along the Blue Nile is generated during just three months of the year, and what is colloquially known as "The Flood" regularly causes damage in both countries. The NB-DSS was used in a study to investigate the impacts of upstream Ethiopian dams, including the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, on the existing Blue Nile reservoir systems in Sudan. The study findings showed that optimized operation of the upstream dams reduced downstream peak flood values and augmented low flows in the river. Additional benefits included increased power generation and water supply for irrigation, and improved flood control. The NB-DSS enabled government officials to review and evaluate dam operating scenarios, which enhanced the management of the region's water resources and improved lives.

--A catchment area, or drainage basin, is an area of land where rainfall collects and drains into a body of water. The Sebaya River catchment area, in Rwanda, is prone to frequent and destructive floods, which can be exacerbated by outflows from this river's hydroelectric dams. Simulations performed with the NB-DSS showed that additional Sebeya storage ponds-- at the outlet of the catchment area and at each of this river's tributaries--delayed outflows from the dams. Water released from these ponds at the end of flood events would minimize the negative impact on surrounding communities and save property and lives in the region.

--The Nyando River Basin, in Kenya, has one of Africa's densest populations and is unusually susceptible to disruptive, economically damaging downstream floods. Regional engineers used the NB-DSS to address two questions: how can the negative impact of these floods be mitigated, and how can the floodwaters be used to improve the condition of local residents before the water flows back into the river? Our model showed that with additional infrastructure, using water for irrigation and hydroelectric power while minimizing shortages and inefficiencies would be impossible.

The Future of the Nile River Basin Initiative

As the population of the countries along the Nile River continues to rise, and as these countries increase their level of data sharing and cooperation, we are confident that the systems we developed for NBI will continue to improve the lives of millions of Africans. We look forward to addressing any challenges future changes in climate might bring.

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The longest river in the world, the Nile spans 35 degrees of latitude, drains three million square kilometers of land (one-tenth of the total surface area of Africa), and runs through 11 countries whose combined population totals over 300 million people: Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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The longest river in the world, the Nile spans 35 degrees of latitude, drains three million square kilometers of land (one-tenth of the total surface area of Africa), and runs through 11 countries whose combined population totals over 300 million people: Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Nile's primary water source, Lake Victoria, is the world's second-largest body of fresh water, and the Nile Delta in northern Egypt covers over 150 miles of the Mediterranean coastline.

The Nile was the lifespring of ancient Egypt, the world's first great civilization, and it looms just as large in 21 st century geopolitics as it did 5,000 years ago. Many of the countries in the Nile's drainage area are challenged by poverty, deteriorating natural resources, and overpopulation. Modern Egypt's dependence on the Nile for irrigation and hydroelectric power (via the Aswan Dam) has historically driven the government of Egypt to raise concerns about development projects further south, along the Upper Nile valley.

Since 2000, we have been involved in the Nile River Basin Initiative (NBI), a regional intergovernmental partnership that seeks to develop the Nile in a cooperative manner and promote regional peace, water security, and sharing of socio-economic benefits. Some of the specific project work was with the NBI Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office (ENTRO). The mission was to help member countries (Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Sudan) with irrigation and drainage, flood control and early-warning systems, and various hydroelectric projects. Much of our time was spent helping build the NBI infrastructure-the systems by which government ministers and technicians communicate and coordinate with one another-which has given us a deep understanding of the political, social, economic, and climatological pressures that exist in this region of Africa.

Implementing the Nile Basin Decision Support System

A key component of the NBI, which we helped implement in 2008, is the Nile Basin Decision Support System (NB-DSS). This computerized system includes various toolsets for data processing, modeling, scenario management, and optimization and multi-criteria decision making. NB-DSS also gives users the ability to integrate environmental, social, and economic objectives, greatly facilitating multi-sector water resources planning at the river basin level. About 150 water resources engineers from the 11 NBI countries use the NB-DSS to inform their decision-making processes.

How does NB-DSS work? Here are three examples:

--The eastern tributary of the Nile, the Blue Nile, originates in Lake Tana, in Ethiopia, and joins the White Nile near the Sudanese city of Khartoum. Eighty percent of the flow along the Blue Nile is generated during just three months of the year, and what is colloquially known as "The Flood" regularly causes damage in both countries. The NB-DSS was used in a study to investigate the impacts of upstream Ethiopian dams, including the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, on the existing Blue Nile reservoir systems in Sudan. The study findings showed that optimized operation of the upstream dams reduced downstream peak flood values and augmented low flows in the river. Additional benefits included increased power generation and water supply for irrigation, and improved flood control. The NB-DSS enabled government officials to review and evaluate dam operating scenarios, which enhanced the management of the region's water resources and improved lives.

--A catchment area, or drainage basin, is an area of land where rainfall collects and drains into a body of water. The Sebaya River catchment area, in Rwanda, is prone to frequent and destructive floods, which can be exacerbated by outflows from this river's hydroelectric dams. Simulations performed with the NB-DSS showed that additional Sebeya storage ponds-- at the outlet of the catchment area and at each of this river's tributaries--delayed outflows from the dams. Water released from these ponds at the end of flood events would minimize the negative impact on surrounding communities and save property and lives in the region.

--The Nyando River Basin, in Kenya, has one of Africa's densest populations and is unusually susceptible to disruptive, economically damaging downstream floods. Regional engineers used the NB-DSS to address two questions: how can the negative impact of these floods be mitigated, and how can the floodwaters be used to improve the condition of local residents before the water flows back into the river? Our model showed that with additional infrastructure, using water for irrigation and hydroelectric power while minimizing shortages and inefficiencies would be impossible.

The Future of the Nile River Basin Initiative

As the population of the countries along the Nile River continues to rise, and as these countries increase their level of data sharing and cooperation, we are confident that the systems we developed for NBI will continue to improve the lives of millions of Africans. We look forward to addressing any challenges future changes in climate might bring.

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The longest river in the world, the Nile spans 35 degrees of latitude, drains three million square kilometers of land (one-tenth of the total surface area of Africa), and runs through 11 countries whose combined population totals over 300 million people: Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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Alexandra Barton, Guest Writer)

Sudan faces ecological crises like water scarcity and desertification. Rural Sudanese are displaced often by changing landscapes and a lack of agricultural production. The demand for water increases, but its availability to the country's inhabitants continually remains low. Access to water is needed, as much of Sudan's country has become neglected.

The livelihood of Sudan depends on its excess use of its water sources. Eighty percent of the country works in agriculture, which accounts for 97% of its water use. Most farms are rural and fed by rainwater. They provide for a family or a small community, making them the majority means of living for the Sudanese. Yet, their farming practices are hurting the environment. Much of Sudan's land is cultivated by mechanized farming . This intense agricultural system has reduced arable soil, and according the United Nations Environment Programme, has caused desertification to spread. The irrigation used to feed the mechanized farms and intense cultivation by rural Sudanese are causal to the arid environment diffusing over Sudan.

Women and children must devote the most time in their days to gather water from distant sources. They risk their health and safety by bearing frequent trips to a well remote from their home. Additionally, the women lose productivity from other domestic duties. In Sudan about two percent of water is available for domestic use (In the United States, water for domestic use accounts for 13% of total supply).

Most of Sudan's currently accessible underground water is shared with surrounding countries . Sudan utilizes part of the NileRiver Basin, but its use is not regulated or maintained by the government. This unrestrained use of shared water, mostly for irrigation and energy, creates tension with neighboring countries like Egypt and Ethiopia. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) uses the term water stress to refer to a situation where political or economic problems occur because of a lack of water. According to the Water Systems Analysis Group at the University of New Hampshire, about a quarter of Africa's population suffers from this problem. Sudan has a critical case of water stress.

The Sudanese are at high risks for contracting waterborne diseases. In 2006 there were 476 deaths caused by diarrhoea in just five months, with Cholera-causing bacterium present in stool samples. Similarly, the Darfur region had 3753 reported cases of hepatitis E from May to August 2004. Contaminated drinking water may also cause Dracunculiasis, or Guinea Worm Disease. It can rapidly affect a water supply for a village by one infected person, harming the total area. Three out of five cases of Guinea Worm Disease come from Sudan. Open water sources, such as standing ponds, are common modes of transferring diseases in villages.

Environmental changes have left the Sudanese to struggle for their own survival. The country strains to provide clean, accessible water to all regions.

The Water Project has twenty missions to build wells in Sudan that are either in development or have been completed. This well was built for St. Bartholomew's Orphanage, where it now provides clean water for 130 orphans in Southern Sudan. More plans will offer accessible water for thousands of Sudanese.

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Learn about the water crisis facing Sudan. Read about some of the causes and the differences found from one part of Sudan to another.

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6 Facts About the Water Crisis in South Sudan - The Borgen Project

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Due to the water crisis in South Sudan, Only 41 percent of people in South Sudan clean drinking water access in 2019.

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The country of Sudan is located in northeastern Africa, where it has many neighbors. It is bordered by Egypt on the north and Libya on the northwest. Chad lies along the western border, and the Central African Republic lies to the southwest. South Sudan, which was long part of Sudan, lies to the south. Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Red Sea extend along the eastern border. Area 710,693 square miles (1,840,687 square kilometers). Population (2023 est.) 46,392,000.

Sudan's capital is Khartoum. Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North are adjacent cities that together make up the country's largest urban area. It is located at the junction of the White Nile (a section of the Nile River) and the Blue Nile (a tributary of the Nile). The Nile Valley and its irrigated agricultural areas are the most settled part of the country.

Sudan was ruled by the British and the Egyptians from the late 19th century. It became independent in 1956. After that, Sudan had many changes in government, fluctuating between ineffective parliamentary government and unstable military rule. The country was also wracked by conflict between the different populations living in the north and the south.

Most of Sudan's people are Muslim Arabs. For more than a century, Sudan also included what is now South Sudan, whose population is largely composed of sub-Saharan African ethnic groups who follow Christianity or traditional African religions. Starting in the 1950s, rebels in the south and the Sudanese government fought two decades-long civil wars. A peace agreement finally ended the second war in 2005. In January 2011 citizens in southern Sudan voted to become independent, and on July 9, 2011, South Sudan officially seceded from Sudan.

Sudan is mostly a land of flat plains. The northern part of the country consists largely of sand- or gravel-covered desert that is part of the great Sahara. In the west wind erosion caused by the northeast trade winds has created a vast sand plain, the Qawz, with rippling sand dunes. An extensive clay plain stretches through south-central Sudan.

Plateaus and mountains are located mainly near the borders. The Red Sea Hills, the most extensive highlands in Sudan, are in the northeast. In the west near the border with Chad the volcanic Marrah Mountains rise out of the Darfur Plateau, reaching elevations between about 3,000 to 10,000 feet (900 to 3,000 meters) above sea level. The Nuba Mountains, a group of isolated hills, rise abruptly from the south-central clay plain. Uplands also line the border with Ethiopia in the southeast.

Through the middle of Sudan flows the Nile River. All streams and rivers of Sudan drain either into or toward the Nile. Its waters rise in Lake Victoria and cross Uganda and South Sudan before flowing northward through southern Sudan. When it enters Sudan, the river is known as the White Nile. The Nile's largest tributary, the Blue Nile, also flows through Sudan. From its source in the highlands of neighboring Ethiopia, the Blue Nile follows a northwestward course in Sudan. The Blue Nile joins the White Nile at Khartoum to form the main branch of the Nile, which then flows across the desert into Egypt.

Most of Sudan is characterized by a hot, dry climate. The Libyan and Nubian deserts, subdivisions of the Sahara, cover the north. Here it is dry year-round. In central and southern Sudan there are two seasons: wet and dry. Khartoum, at the edge of the desert, has significant rains only during July and August. Its annual precipitation averages between 4 and 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters). At the desert's edge precipitation is minimal and extremely variable, with droughts common. The southernmost part of the country has a longer summer rainy season, receiving some 20 to 30 inches (50 to 75 centimeters) of precipitation annually.

Temperatures in Sudan are some of the hottest in the world. The central and eastern areas have the highest mean annual temperatures, typically ranging from the mid-90s to mid-100s F (mid-30s to low 40s C). In the west and northwest of the country, the highest mean temperatures generally range from the mid-80s to mid-90s F (low to mid-30s C). The highest temperatures normally occur just before the summer rains and the coolest temperatures during the winter months of December and January. Along the Red Sea the climate is alleviated by sea breezes, and most of the rain falls during winter.

With the exception of the Red Sea Hills, northern Sudan is a vast desert with little vegetation. As the precipitation increases toward the south, the vegetation gradually increases. Most of southern Sudan consists of savannas, with short grasses and a variety of acacia trees. Large areas of Sudan's natural vegetation have disappeared because of the effects of centuries of cultivation and because of grass fires that annually may sweep across more than half the country. The advance of the desert from the north presents a further danger to plant life.

Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz

The country's wildlife includes lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants, and many kinds of antelope. Among the resident birds are bustards, guinea fowl, and storks. Reptiles include crocodiles and various lizards. Insect life is abundant. Among the domesticated animals are sheep, goats, cattle, and camels.

Sudan has several protected nature areas, including game reserves and national parks. Dinder and Radom national parks have been designated as UNESCO biosphere reserves.

Sudan is dominated by Arab Muslims. For the most part, however, these people are ethnically mixed, and many of them are physically indistinguishable from Sudanese who do not consider themselves "Arab." Moreover, the country's Arabs do not form a cohesive group, ranging from city dwellers to village farmers and pastoral nomads.

Sudan is also home to several peoples who are Muslim but not Arab. Among them are the Nubians, who live along the Nile in the far north and in southern Egypt; the Beja, pastoral nomads of the Red Sea Hills; and the Fur, who are settled farmers living in the Marrah Mountains in the far west.

The vast majority of Sudan's non-Muslim peoples live in the south. They include the Nuba, of the Nuba Mountains; and the Dinka, who live near the southern border and in South Sudan. The capital of Khartoum, in the center of Sudan, is also home to non-Muslim populations.

Arabic is the most widely spoken language in Sudan. It belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family, as does the Bedawi language of the Beja. Most of the rest of the country's languages belong to two families of African languages: the Nilo-Saharan family and the Niger-Congo family. Since the many different peoples of Sudan speak different languages, the vast majority of Sudanese have become multilingual, with Arabic and, to a lesser extent, English as second languages.

Most of Sudan's people are Muslims, nearly all of whom follow the Sunni branch. Smaller portions of the population follow traditional animist religions or Christianity.

Sudan's population is mostly rural, with only about a third living in urban areas. The livelihood of the rural people is based primarily on agriculture and pastoral activities. Thus their way of life depends on the availability of vegetation and water resources.

In the north nomadic Arab tribes such as the Kababish wander the desert with their herds in search of the vegetation that grows after the rare desert thunderstorms. In the Nile Valley and in the irrigated Gezira (Al-Jazirah) region, the people lead a sedentary agricultural existence. The abundant sunshine, year-round growing season, and water from the Nile allow the farmers to reap multiple harvests from the land each year.

Away from the irrigated areas people depend on the annual rainy season for crop production. The low amounts and the variability of precipitation force people to grow more drought-resistant plants. In south-central Sudan many farmers earn a cash income by collecting gum arabic, the sap of an acacia tree. Gum arabic is used in the production of adhesives, candy, and pharmaceuticals.

The Khartoum metropolitan area, which also includes Omdurman and Khartoum North, is the largest urban center. It is located roughly in the center of the country. Other principal cities are Nyala, in the southwest; Port Sudan, the major port, on the Red Sea coast in the northeast; and Al-Ubayyid, in the south.

Sudan is one of the richest African countries in terms of archaeological sites. Ruins of the ancient kingdom of Kush (or Cush) are found at Gebel Barkal and associated sites in the Nile valley. These sites were collectively designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003. The archaeological sites at Meroe, an ancient Kushitic city, were collectively designated a World Heritage site in 2011.

When Sudan became independent from Great Britain in 1956, it inherited a limited educational system. In the 1970s major changes in education emphasized basic literacy, and the number of primary schools was expanded. Further reforms were later introduced, including making eight years of primary education compulsory beginning at age six. As a result, the number of adults who could read and write increased from roughly 20 percent in the 1970s to more than 60 percent in the early 21st century. There is still a major shortage of schools and teachers, however. Sudan has a number of institutions for higher education. The University of Khartoum was formally established in 1956. Other universities include Al-Neelain University and Sudan University of Science and Technology, both in Khartoum. Omdurman Islamic University, which trains Muslim clerics and scholars, is in Omdurman. Arabic is the primary language used in the country's schools.

Access to health services in Sudan greatly depends upon geographic location. Most of the country's small number of physicians are concentrated in the urban areas, as are the major hospitals. Varying ecological conditions, poor hygiene, and widespread malnutrition result in a high incidence of fatal infectious diseases. The most common illnesses are malaria, measles, and tuberculosis.

Sudan is one of the poorest and least-developed countries in the world. About four-fifths of the labor force works in agriculture. The major crops that farmers raise to feed their families are sorghum and millet, grown in the rainy region of southern Sudan. Many Sudanese households keep some livestock, particularly in the rural areas. Sheep, goats, and cattle are the most commonly raised animals. Livestock are also an important agricultural export. The main cash crops include cotton, peanuts (groundnuts), sesame, gum arabic (obtained from acacia trees), sorghum, and sugarcane.

The agricultural heart of Sudan is the irrigated region between the Blue and the White Niles, known as the Gezira Scheme. One of the largest irrigation projects in the world, the scheme covers roughly 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares), providing water for more than 100,000 farmers. It was begun by the British in 1925 with a dam at Sannar on the Blue Nile to supply their textile industry with high-quality cotton. Cotton is still the principal crop in the region.

Manufacturing is not well developed. It is dominated by the processing of foods and other agricultural products, including sugar refining, cotton ginning and spinning, leather tanning, and the production of vegetable oils.

Petroleum was discovered in southern Sudan in 1977, but exploitation and development of the oil deposits were slowed by the civil war that began in the 1980s. Oil ultimately became Sudan's most valuable export. When the south seceded in 2011, however, the majority of the oil reserves fell within the borders of the newly independent South Sudan.

Gold is mined in the Red Sea Hills. In the west near the borders of Chad and the Central African Republic are uranium reserves. Sudan also has deposits of chromite, gypsum, mica, marble, and iron ore. However, most of these resources have not been extensively developed.

Sudan's principal exports are petroleum, gold, livestock, cotton, gum arabic, sesame products, and peanuts. Major imports include machinery, wheat, transportation equipment, and other manufactured products. Sudan's leading trading partners include the United Arab Emirates, China, Saudi Arabia, India, and Egypt.

Transportation in Sudan is not well developed. Most of the country's all-weather roads and railroads are in the east, linking Khartoum and the Gezira with Port Sudan on the Red Sea. A rail line also runs westward from Al-Ubayyid to Nyala, with a branch line extending to Wau, in South Sudan. Sudan is linked to Egypt by a railroad from Khartoum to Lake Nasser, the artificial lake created by the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. Port Sudan, located 850 miles (1,400 kilometers) south of Suez, Egypt, is the country's main port. Several air carriers, including Sudan Airways, the national airline, furnish domestic and international service from the major airport at Khartoum. There are a number of smaller airports, including those at Al-Ubayyid and Port Sudan.

Sudan's landline telephone network is limited and has a relatively small number of users. Cellular phone use is much more pervasive, particularly in urban areas. Internet service is available in many of the main cities and towns. Broadcast media are owned and controlled by the government. Print media has slightly more freedom and may be privately owned, though the government exerts considerable control over content.

Early History
In ancient times the land that is now Sudan was part of a region known as Nubia. From the end of the 4th millennium bc, Nubia periodically came under Egyptian rule. Sudan was part of the kingdom of Kush (or Cush), which arose in southern Nubia, from the 11th century bc to the 4th century ad. Kushite culture was strongly influenced by Egypt, especially in the use of hieroglyphs and pyramidal architecture. In the 8th century bc the Kushites invaded and conquered Egypt. The kings of Kush ruled as Egypt's 25th dynasty for less than a hundred years, however, before they were pushed back to Nubia. Soon afterward the Kushites moved their capital to Meroe, near the Nile, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of what is now Khartoum. Today, major Kush ruins are found at Meroe.

After the destruction of Meroe in ad 350 by an Ethiopian army, there eventually arose a number of Christian kingdoms along the Nile north of Khartoum. Christianity was brought into the region by Coptic missionaries from Egypt. These Christian Nubian kingdoms reached their height in the 9th and 10th centuries. They coexisted with their Muslim Arab neighbors in Egypt for centuries, until an influx of Arab immigrants brought about their collapse in the 13th-15th centuries. Two Arab sultanates eventually consolidated their control over most of what is now Sudan by the 16th century.

Egyptian and British Rule
The Arab sultanates fell under the control of Egypt, which was itself ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire, in 1821. By 1874 the Egyptians had conquered the entire Sudan region, including what are now Sudan and South Sudan. The slave trade was greatly expanded and pushed into what is now South Sudan. The various sub-Saharan African peoples of the south, who were primarily Christian and animist, were enslaved by the Muslim Arabs of the north. The hatred engendered by the slave trade still persists.

The Egyptians encouraged British interference in Sudan. This aroused Muslim opposition to Egyptian rule. Muhammad Ahmad proclaimed himself the Mahdi (meaning the "divinely guided") and organized a resistance movement. His followers laid siege to Khartoum and overwhelmed Anglo-Egyptian forces on January 26, 1885. The Mahdi established a Muslim state, but he died of typhus five months after the fall of Khartoum. The Mahdist state continued under his successor, who was known as the Khalifah (meaning "caliph").

Meanwhile, the British had occupied Egypt. They wanted to keep rival European powers out of the Nile Valley. Sudan had been under the rule of the Khalifah for about 12 years when the British invaded to protect the Nile from French forces. A decisive battle occurred at Omdurman on September 2, 1898, when the British-using machine guns and artillery-killed about 10,000 Mahdist fighters and lost only 48 of their own men.

After the British conquest, Sudan was ruled jointly by the British and the Egyptians as Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Sudanese nationalism gradually redeveloped, and on January 1, 1956, Sudan became independent.

Independent Sudan
The government of the new country was dominated by Muslim Arabs from the north. The mainly Christian and animist African peoples of the south (which is now the separate country of South Sudan) were largely excluded from the country's administration. A group in the south had begun to rebel against the government in 1955. Civil war broke out, with southern resistance increasing as the government took measures to foster the spread of Islam and the Arabic language throughout the country. The war lasted until 1972 and caused the deaths of more than half a million people-primarily from malnutrition and disease.

After a series of civilian and military governments, power was seized in 1969 by Colonel Gaafar Mohamed el-Nimeiri. He ruled the country for 16 years. Initially Nimeiri had popular support, his major accomplishment being the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement that ended the civil war.

Civil war between southern rebels and the government began again in 1983. A combination of the war, desperate economic conditions brought on by drought, and a crippling foreign debt resulted in Nimeiri's dictatorship being overthrown in 1985.

Sudan under Bashir
A democratic civilian government emerged after elections in 1986. The dominant political movement was the Umma party. The prime minister elected in 1986 was Sadiq al-Mahdi, the great-grandson of the Mahdi and a former prime minister (1966-67). A new coalition government was formed in March 1989 as a step toward ending the civil war. In June Mahdi was overthrown in a military coup by the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation (RCC), led by Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir. The civil war raged on.

Upon seizing power, the RCC abolished the constitution, the National Assembly, and all political parties and trade unions and ruled by decree. The RCC was controlled by the National Islamic Front (NIF), a Muslim fundamentalist political party. In 1990 Bashir survived a failed coup attempt. In 1993, as part of a transition to civilian rule, the RCC appointed Bashir president and then disbanded. However, the NIF remained in firm control of the government. The NIF later became the National Congress Party (NCP). The first presidential and legislative elections since the 1989 coup were held in 1996. Bashir won the presidency and was also reelected in 2000.

A new constitution approved by referendum in 1998 called for Islamic law, Shariʿah, to be the basis for the country's laws and regulations. It also lifted the ban on political parties. Later that year, however, a power struggle between Bashir and the leader of the National Assembly led the president to dissolve the legislature. Soon thereafter Bashir declared a state of emergency.

Following his reelection in 2000, Bashir faced grave problems ranging from the civil war to widespread famine. Drought and flooding left hundreds of thousands of people without food or shelter in 2001. Experts estimated that by 2005 some 4.5-5 million people had been displaced by the civil war.

In early 2005 the government and the southern rebels finally signed a peace agreement. The agreement set forth a new interim constitution and guidelines for sharing power. It also allowed for southern Sudan to be administered separately and called for a referendum on independence for that region to be held in six years. Sudan's interim constitution established a two-house legislature, consisting of the National Assembly and the Council of States. It also provided for the president to be elected to a five-year term, renewable once. Islamic law was maintained, though relaxed penalties were allowed for non-Muslims.

In the meantime, a separate conflict in the Darfur region in western Sudan had begun in 2003. Rebels launched an insurrection to protest the Sudanese government's neglect of the western region and its non-Arab population. In response, the government supported Arab militias to fight against the rebels in Darfur. The militias, however, also terrorized the civilians in the region and prevented international aid organizations from delivering food and medical supplies. Despite a 2004 cease-fire, by 2007 the conflict had left hundreds of thousands of people dead and more than two million displaced.

Because of the Darfur crisis, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Bashir in March 2009, charging him with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bashir's popularity in Sudan, however, remained unchanged. In April 2010 he was reelected president.

In January 2011, following the terms of the 2005 peace agreement, southern Sudanese citizens voted on the referendum for southern independence. An overwhelming majority chose to secede from Sudan. Southern independence was scheduled for six months in the future. Many important issues regarding the division of the country remained unresolved, however, including the sharing of its oil wealth and the new borders. Fighting broke out in two oil-rich border areas, the disputed region of Abyei and the state of Southern Kordofan. Although technically in the north, Southern Kordofan was home to thousands of people who had fought for the south during the civil war. Agreements signed in June called for the withdrawal of troops from both Abyei and Southern Kordofan. As scheduled, on July 9 South Sudan officially became a new country, and Sudan was no longer the largest country in Africa.

In the years following the south's secession, Sudan continued to be challenged by ongoing rebel activity in Darfur and the Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states. The government often used brutal campaigns to quell resistance, deploying air bombardment, tanks, and sophisticated weaponry. Bashir had vowed to defeat rebel opposition by 2015. However, the national army did not possess the resources or the capability to do so, given the degree of public support for the rebels in their strongholds. The ongoing conflict led many Sudanese to flee from their homes. By the end of 2014 about 650,000 people had sought refuge in Ethiopia, Chad, and Egypt. Another 1,873,000 were internally displaced.

Bashir had promised to step down from office at the end of his current term. He changed course in October 2014 when he accepted the NCP's nomination as the party's presidential candidate in the 2015 elections. Later that year the ICC prosecutor announced that she was suspending the investigation of the case against him in regard to criminal action in Darfur. She did this because the United Nations (UN) Security Council was not taking any action to compel Bashir and other defendants to appear in court. In April 2015 Bashir was reelected by a landslide. The election results were dismissed by the opposition, which claimed the polls lacked credibility.

Against the backdrop of a deteriorating economy, Sudanese citizens began to stage large antigovernment demonstrations in late 2018. Many protesters openly called for Bashir to step down. The demonstrations continued for weeks, sometimes turning violent when protesters and security forces clashed. Bashir declared a state of emergency on February 22, 2019. He dissolved the central and state governments. In the following days, he appointed military leaders to the state governorships and named a new prime minister. He also banned unauthorized rallies. Protests continued, nonetheless. While Bashir made additional gestures, such as resigning as head of the NCP and reshuffling his cabinet, he refused to step down from the presidency.

On April 6, 2019, thousands of demonstrators marched to the compound in Khartoum that housed the military headquarters. There they began a mass sit-in that lasted for days. Although security forces attempted to use violence to disperse the crowds, some segments of the military intervened to protect the protesters. On April 11 the military announced that it had removed Bashir from power, dissolved his government, and placed him under arrest. In a televised statement, Sudan's defense minister indicated that a military council would oversee a transitional government for a period of two years, after which elections would be held for a new civilian government. Protesters, however, rejected plans for a military-led transition and demanded that a civilian transitional government be formed instead.

Later Developments
In the months that followed, talks between civilian groups and military leaders regarding the composition of a new transitional government continued. Mediation efforts were led by Ethiopia and the African Union. A power-sharing agreement was finally signed in August 2019. Under the agreement a transitional Sovereignty Council, comprising military and civilian representatives, took power. The Sovereignty Council was expected to rule until democratic elections, scheduled for 2022, were held. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who had been heading the military-led transition council, was named president. Abdalla Hamdok, selected by the civilian groups' alliance, was appointed prime minister. Bashir, meanwhile, had been charged with corruption-related acts and was convicted in December 2019. He still faced other charges, including those in connection with the death of demonstrators protesting against his rule earlier in the year.

Tensions remained high between the military and civilian leaders. The level of tension increased in the aftermath of an attempted coup by Bashir loyalists in September 2021. The military subdued the attempt but placed the blame for it on civilian leaders. In the protests that followed, some demonstrators called for the military to oust the civilian representatives from the government. Others called for the military to respect civilian rule and the democratic transition.

On October 25 the military launched a coup with the backing of Burhan and other top military officials. Hamdok and other cabinet ministers were arrested. Burhan dissolved the Sovereignty Council, declared a state of emergency, and pledged to hold new elections in 2023. In Khartoum, Omdurman, and other locations across the country, protesters rallied against the coup. The next day Burhan claimed the military took the actions that it did in order to avoid a civil war. Protests continued, however. Meanwhile, the military coup was widely condemned on the international stage.

Burhan soon formed a new Sovereignty Council, of which he was head. On November 21, 2021, he and Hamdok signed an agreement that reinstated Hamdok as prime minister. Hamdok was allowed to form his own government but agreed to share power with the military.

Hamdok eventually resigned in January 2022. Over the next year, negotiations for the transition to a civilian-led government made little progress. In 2023 a rivalry developed between Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti). Hemedti led an unofficial military group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Clashes between Burhan's military forces and Hemedti's RSF erupted in April. Fighting between the rival sides occurred in Khartoum and elsewhere, leading to a humanitarian crisis for civilians.

Dau, John Bul, and Akech, Martha Arual. Lost Boy, Lost Girl: Escaping Civil War in Sudan (National Geographic, 2010). Hay, Jeff, ed. The Crisis in Darfur (Greenhaven, 2011). Jeffries, Corina. Sudan (Cavendish Square, 2022). Powell, Jillian. Sudan (Franklin Watts, 2013).

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The country of Sudan is located in northeastern Africa, where it has many neighbors. It is bordered by Egypt on the north and Libya on the northwest. Chad lies along the...

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Nile River - Physiography: It is thought that approximately 30 million years ago the early Nile, then a much shorter stream, had its sources at about 18° to 20° N latitude. Its main headstream may then have been the present Atbara River. To the south lay the vast enclosed drainage system containing the large Lake Sudd.

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Conflict between Dinka and Nuer in South Sudan

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The Dinka and Nuer, two rival pastoralist groups, have competed over grazing land and water for their cattle in the past. These clashes have usually taken place in a local context without causing massive amounts of fatalities.

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NASIR, South Sudan-When she was a girl, in the 1960s, Sarah Kier's parents fled southern Sudan with her. The Sudanese civil war, in which black-African inhabitants from the country's south were fighting for autonomy against an oppressive Arab-dominated government in the north, had been going on, without respite, for more than a decade. Kier's family moved to the hills of western Ethiopia. When she grew older, Kier became aware of the south's struggle. She joined the southern rebel militia, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), and became a battlefield medic. She spent much of her early life around violence and death.

On a hazy afternoon this past April, Kier was in the passenger seat of an old Land Cruiser, moving through those same hills, thinking about what it was like to not have a childhood. "You know, like for a young person somewhere else, you go for disco," she told me. "We don't know that. We [Sudanese] have ever lived with guns, from the word go."

The road emerged from a forest into a valley, and Kier gasped and smiled-as a girl, she suddenly recalled, she had lived in a house near here. It seemed a lifetime away. Then she noticed that trees had been cut down to make way for farms. She shook her head and clucked her tongue. "I'm telling you, this is sad," she said, looking out the window. "I mean, I am connected to those trees."

That morning Kier had departed in the Land Cruiser from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, where for weeks she'd been living in a small, bare room in a guesthouse, along with South Sudanese friends. They were living in exile, watching from afar as their country, less than three years old, disintegrated.

The civil war that had driven her family out had continued, off and on, until 2011, when the south finally gained independence. The creation of the Republic of South Sudan, in July of that year, was the most jubilant scene of African progress since the end of apartheid in South Africa. But in December 2013, the violence returned. Pitted against each other were South Sudan's two predominant and most populous tribes, the Dinka and Nuer. Longtime rivals who had battled over land and resources since at least the 19th century, their fragile détente underlay the new republic. Without it, there could be no South Sudan. And now, faster than would have seemed possible-so fast it seemed somehow fated-they were once more at one another's throats.

A Nation Unraveling

As thousands died and hundreds of thousands were displaced, South Sudan's president, Salva Kiir, who is Dinka, claimed the conflict had originated in a coup attempt, and laid the blame for it at the feet of his former vice president, Riek Machar. Machar, a Nuer, leveled damning accusations of his own: Kiir had not only fabricated the coup plot in order to kill him, Machar declared, but also had in mind a genocide of the Nuer. Machar fled the capital, Juba, for his seat of power, in the country's northeast, and arranged a rebellion (likewise with improbable speed), and battles and atrocities followed.

This all came as a shock to the outside world, still gazing on its youngest nation with pride. The shock was particularly keen in Washington, the main foreign cheerleader for, and funder of, South Sudanese independence. In May, Secretary of State John Kerry was dispatched to bring Kiir and Machar to the negotiating table; the ceasefire he brokered lasted a matter of days.

The South Sudanese themselves were less surprised.

A Bad Thing Long Ago

Sarah Kier was on her way to the village of Nasir, in the Upper Nile Province of South Sudan, the heart of Nuerland and Machar's headquarters, with a soldier and a bodyguard. She was a veteran of the civil war, and after independence had been appointed a minister in Kiir's government; but when the fighting broke out in December, she was targeted by his troops-because she's part Nuer, she believes. (Her father is Nuer, her mother Dinka.) She joined Machar's insurgency, and went to Addis Ababa, where members of his inner circle had gathered to lobby the Ethiopian government and outside world for support.

Kier and her companions planned to sneak over the border at the Baro River and had agreed to bring me with them to meet Machar. (Kiir's office had declined my request to speak with him.) On top of the Land Cruiser were jerricans of oil, sacks of rice, supplies, and messages destined for his camp, where she was to take part in a meeting of his generals. Their forces had been stopped outside Juba and pushed back. The war had stalemated. Kier hoped to convince Machar to put her in charge of one of the theaters of battle.

Even before the conflict began, Machar was the most controversial of South Sudanese public figures, considered by some a selfless patriot, by others a shameless traitor. He is in many ways the embodiment of South Sudan's war within, the principal harbinger of what the historian Francis Deng has called his country's culture of "ritualized rebellion." And Kier, who is unmistakably South Sudanese in appearance-very tall, very dark-could not have been prouder to be in his orbit. A phone at each ear, the mother of seven talked excitedly of returning to the battlefield. "I'm going to war, I'm going to war, my dear," she said to a friend on a phone. "I'm going to shoot my own gun." She referred to Machar as Dr. Riek, or The Big Man. "We will talk to The Big Man when we get there," she said, when I asked whether he knew a National Geographic reporter was coming with her.

She recounted how she had gotten out of Juba when the fighting began. An old friend and fellow soldier called. "He told me, 'Leave your house now,'" she said in a rapid-fire patter. "I told him, 'Give me a gun. Me, I will not die. Give me a gun. I will not die like this.'" Four months later, she still couldn't believe what happened. "Could this be one of those bad dreams, when you wake, you say, 'Oh, God, thank you, it was a dream'? Because we thought we're just now coming to enjoy our country."

Riu, the soldier, a tall, rangy Nuer in his early 30s, was squeezed into the cargo hold in the back of the truck, a green patrol cap pulled over his forehead. He was more solemn than Kier. When the fighting began, he said, he was in his barracks in a village outside Juba. "Everyone is just firing his gun and shooting at each other." He escaped and made his way to the capital, where he found a group of soldiers who were secreting Machar and other officials out of the city. He joined them. "What took place on that day was something planned."

As they talked, Kier grew agitated. How had their homeland descended with such ease into suicide? she wanted to know. How had their country, whose creation had given the world so much hope, turned so quickly on itself? "Children have been killed. Innocent ones. Innocent blood," she said. "For what? Because of the tribe? A tribe is not by choice." Riu calmly mused on this. "I can just conclude," he offered, "that Dinkas are having some kind of leadership style that easily leads people into chaos."

That afternoon the air grew thick, the landscape mountainous, and the conversation turned to the supernatural. Kier and her companions considered themselves to be good Christians, as many South Sudanese do. But they were struggling to reconcile that with what they'd seen.

"What happened in South Sudan," Kier said, "I think even God wouldn't have allowed it, because the sin is too much."

"God is punishing South Sudan," said Jacob, the bodyguard, who compared his land to Israel. "I think they've done a bad thing long ago."

Kier nodded. "God can punish a whole nation because of one person," she added, seeming to have Salva Kiir in mind. "Just like God also can save the whole nation because of one person." She seemed to have Machar in mind.

I asked Riu what he thought of this. "I think it is just some kind of illusion, when you talk of South Sudan being punished by God," he said. "All of these disasters, or political conflicts, they happen as a result of many things."

In every town in which they stopped in Ethiopia, they met friends who'd fled South Sudan. (Most were Nuer, as was clear from the horizontal gaar scarring on their foreheads.) They hugged and laughed, happy to see each other alive. Some were coming from Nasir, in South Sudan; others were on their way there. But most, it seemed, were living in squalid roadside hotels, waiting to see what would happen. How long they would have to live in exile, none knew. If it was for the rest of their lives, it wouldn't be the first time they had faced the prospect.

Ritualized Rebellion

There is a popular local proverb: "When God made Sudan, he laughed."

More than any other part of Africa, the Sudan is defined by civil war. It was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, then ushered into the 20th century by an invidious arrangement of Egyptian and British control. Colonial efforts at modernization, such as they existed, were confined to the north; the south was, in the words of one historian, "a mere field from which slaves were harvested."

Though the British favored the Nuer, venerating their virile warrior culture and relying on them to keep the Dinka and other tribes (roughly 60 in all) in check, the Arab ruling class left in place made no secret of its scorn for the black southerners. The southerners, in turn, with their mixture of traditional faiths and Christianity, did not hide their unwillingness to be dictated to or converted to Islam, even if resistance meant their death.

In 1955, months before Sudan gained its independence, the southerners began a war for liberation. It lasted 17 years. The Sudanese military bombed and razed villages across the south and killed, raped, and enslaved civilians en masse. Juba was put to the torch. A period of peace followed in the 1970s. But in 1983 the southern cause gelled into the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and its military wing, the SPLA. Soon after, an Islamist military junta took over in Khartoum. Subjugation of the south was foremost on its mind, even-in fact, especially-if it meant killing people. The abuse was redoubled.

The Second Sudanese Civil War, as it is now known, lasted from 1983 to 2005-the longest war, anywhere, of the modern era. It's estimated that by the end of these two wars, some 2.5 million people, the equivalent of more than a fifth of the current population, had died in fighting or resulting displacement, famine, or disease. Many thousands of others, like Kier and her parents, fled to neighboring countries and the West.

Alongside the civil war raged southern fratricidal conflicts. The most bitter fighting was between Dinka and Nuer factions. But in the push to independence, their rivalry, like the rest of the south's internal fissures, was ignored or played down. Once South Sudan existed, went the thinking, all wrongs could be righted. Scholars pointed out that a similar myopia had proved disastrous to the African independence movements of the 20th century, not least Sudan's. "The ground upon which the country landed at the time of independence was already cracking underneath," as Jok Madut Jok, a historian and former undersecretary for culture and heritage in Kiir's government, put it to me. Amid the elation of 2011, however, cautionary voices like his were drowned out.

Nothing Is Happening

At the Baro River, which forms part of the border between Ethiopia and South Sudan, we loaded the sacks and boxes into a motorboat piloted by a small boy. A minute later, we were in South Sudan. Once atop the steep bank, we found a band of young men in jeans, shorts, and soccer jerseys, Kalashnikovs slung on their backs. They were fighters with the White Army, a Nuer militia allied with Machar. It is known for killing Dinkas, arming minors, and looting anyone and anything with equal abandon.

After an hour, a muddied Chevy Suburban pulled up. From it stepped two men who introduced themselves as colonels in the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in Opposition, Machar's breakaway party. On the drive to Nasir to meet Machar, we passed men walking with rifles and field blankets, their gaits slow with fatigue. A colonel explained that they were coming from the city of Malakal, two days' march, where Machar's troops and the White Army were battling Kiir's government forces for control. "Malakal has changed hands four times," he said.

In Nasir, which still had the steamy, forlorn atmosphere of the British cattle outpost it once was, an easy transition to rebel life was being effected. On the wall in the county commissioner's office hung portraits of Machar and Kiir. Kiir's face had been scratched out with a black pen. In the market square, community meetings and civil trials were being conducted. In one trial, two White Army insurgents, an uncle and nephew, were in dispute over a truck. They'd won the vehicle when they'd killed the government soldier who was driving it. The nephew's claim to it was that he, unlike the uncle, knew how to drive; the uncle's claim was that he had fired the gun.

Machar's camp, on the edge of the town, was small and simple: several tukuls, the traditional Sudanese circular huts, arranged around a dirt clearing. Heat-shimmered scrub brush and sorghum fields stretched in every direction. Between a large tree and a flagpole was a wood-paneled coffee table covered with laptop computers, books, notepads, and satellite phones.

A soldier with a spear stood at attention behind the table; another crouched in front of it manning a .50-caliber field gun, discreetly picking at his toes. At the table, between the sentries, in a black pleather desk chair, was Machar. Even seated he was immense: six-and-a-half feet tall and more than 300 pounds. He wore forest camouflage, eyeglasses, a gold watch, and high-top black sneakers. A tuft of receding hair was flecked with gray, as was his goatee. A soldier fumbled around him with a knot of power strips and adapters, while Machar held a satellite phone to his ear, occasionally talking softly, shifting among English, Nuer, and Arabic.

Finally he put the phone down and gazed up with small, squinting eyes and the rumor of a smile. It was clear he hadn't known, or hadn't remembered, or hadn't cared, that we were coming. He listened patiently and uninterestedly as Kier told the story of her escape from Juba. Then he asked if she knew about the fate of his home there. It had been ransacked and destroyed by government forces, she had heard.

"The first thing they took was the cars," she said.

"The best loot to them was the cars?" Machar said. "What about my books? And the archives?"

"I don't know," she said.

"That is better loot," he said, with a moan, as though to suggest that his tormentors hadn't even sense enough to properly steal from him. "Salva Kiir and his cronies. Well."

Machar welcomed me with the understated amiability for which he's well known. "There was no coup. It was an assassination attempt. Eleven days I was on the run, being hunted," he said. "Our fight is against a dictatorship. Salva Kiir wants to create a dictatorship out of this new country. And we're saying no."

As he spoke, he picked up one of the books from the coffee table and leafed through it languidly. I noticed the cover: Why Nations Fail.

I asked about the state of his rebellion. "These are the three activities: either fighting, or mobilization, or-" he motioned to indicate the inactivity around us and chuckled, "nothing is happening."

"I Am Part of the Gods"

Riek Machar has been called the Bill Clinton of Sudan. The journalist Deborah Scroggins describes him as a man of "bottomless ego" who "feels your pain even as he plots your end." No one doubts his skills as a political survivor, and not even his apologists deny his wish to be president of South Sudan, a job he coveted long before it existed.

The son of a minor Nuer chief, as a child (the 26th of 32) he attended an American missionary school. When he was suspended for leading his class in a song advocating southern independence, the story goes, his mother didn't punish him but bought him his first pair of trousers. A doctorate in England later followed, and he lets no one forget it: If asked to describe the Nuer, he recommends the books of ethnologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard. In wielding power among his tribesmen, though, he mingles the foreign credentials with local mysticism, reminding them that Nuer prophecy speaks of a gap-toothed, left-handed savior, physical attributes of his. When, as a SPLA commander in Upper Nile in the 1980s, he outlawed the gaar, the traditional Nuer face-scarring, priests objected. The gods wouldn't like it, they told him.

"I am part of the gods," he scolded them. "And that is my word!"

In early 2011, as independence approached, word spread that Machar was maneuvering to dislodge Kiir, the acting president. Nonetheless, to keep a lid on ethnic clashes, Kiir allowed him the vice presidency. Soon Machar was publicly castigating his boss. Their rivalry came to define South Sudanese politics. It was captured perfectly in the Othello vs. Iago dynamic of their official state portraits, which hung everywhere: Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit, as his nameplate read, looking blunt and laconic; and Dr. Riek Machar Teny Durghon, wearing a wily, bumptious almost-grin.

By the time those portraits were printed, the elation of independence had evaporated, like a dream upon waking. As though overnight, the long-pined-after utopia of South Sudan had revealed itself to be a militarized one-party kleptocracy. The SPLM was accused of rigging elections; its security forces harassed, detained, and tortured political opponents, journalists, and human rights workers; its soldiers continued to kill civilians as a matter of routine. The army "dominated every critical aspect of life in South Sudan," according to a UN report, a fact that "seriously undermined governance and state institutions, making it difficult to establish the rule of law."

Corruption was already so bad by 2012 that Kiir admitted, in a letter published in newspapers, that billions that should have gone into state coffers had instead gone into pockets. He didn't need to add that those pockets belonged to people he knew. "We fought for freedom, justice and equality. Many of our friends died," he wrote. "Yet, once we got to power, we forgot what we fought for."

He was right, but that didn't win him much credit. (In a follow-up letter, he asked the malefactors to return the funds in exchange for impunity.) South Sudanese, so many of whom had lived in exile in functioning democracies abroad, knew they were not in one now. By last year it was widely assumed that, if there wasn't a coup, there would be a popular uprising.

In July 2013 Kiir fired Machar. At a press conference Machar accused him of "dictatorial tendencies." On the night of December 15, in a barracks in Juba, Dinka soldiers in the presidential guard apparently attempted to disarm their Nuer colleagues. A firefight ensued. Soon units of Dinka soldiers were moving door-to-door through Nuer enclaves, according to witnesses, executing people. According to some, the exteriors of Nuer homes had been marked beforehand, suggesting a premeditated plan. Nuer in turn retaliated against Dinka. The army split into Dinka and Nuer halves, and within days the fighting had spread across the country.

Nuer civilians, their neighborhoods strewn with corpses, fled to the UN compound in Juba. There, in June, I spoke with a group of village elders. One had watched his brother shot dead and his sister-in-law shot in the legs in front of their children. When he grabbed a soldier and pleaded with him not to kill him in front of the children, the soldier beat him to the ground with his rifle butt. He claims the soldier said, "Because you're Nuer, because you're the people of Riek Machar, we can kill you." For some reason, the soldier didn't kill him.

As we spoke, a young, shirtless man walked by the tent we were sitting in, mumbling to himself and gesticulating wildly. "Do you see that boy?" he asked. "He was forced to drink the blood of a man who was killed in front of him. It made him mad."

Close to 50,000 people were living in the compound, which, along with other camps around the country, was flooded by the seasonal rains. There were outbreaks of cholera, tuberculosis, and typhus. In the camps in Malakal and Bentiu, women waited their turn to bury their children. The war devastated the harvest of sorghum and other food staples. Several counties are now suffering famine. But even those refugees whose homes hadn't been destroyed refused to return to them. They believed they'd be killed by the government, or the White Army, as soon as they did. The UN estimates that a million people remain displaced.

Fighting for a Symbol

Back at Machar's camp, boredom prevailed. Having risen from their earthen beds at dawn, his troops put on their uniforms, listened attentively to the BBC, then sat around on ammunition canisters. I spoke with soldiers who'd escaped the violence in Juba in December. One, a Dinka, told me that he'd been loyal to Kiir, but when he saw that Dinka troops were killing their Nuer colleagues indiscriminately (on Kiir's orders, he believed), he felt compelled to join Machar.

After emerging from a camping tent next to the weapons cache, Machar was served tea. An attendant slowly rolled on his socks. That afternoon, as the brass played cards in their pajamas and gym shorts, Machar settled into his desk chair. "I did not think of fighting another war," he told me, as the sentries took up their positions. "I spent my best time, my productive years, prosecuting a war of liberation. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in another war." He sighed. "So they talk about peace. I tell them I want peace. But provided this republic is a democratic nation, there are freedoms in it, there's dignity of the people, there's justice.

"It's not only the Nuer," he went on. "It's the South Sudanese. The Dinka need to be protected also from [Kiir], you know. They're being coerced to go and fight a war which they really have nothing to benefit from." He added, "So maybe very soon we'll take them all and march to Juba."

This is not the first time Machar has made that threat. In 1991 he broke from the SPLA leadership, decrying its "dictatorial tendencies." The allegation was fair, and Machar was hardly the only southerner tired of the SPLA, but what he did next was inexplicable, or perfectly explicable, depending on your opinion of him: He got on the radio to say that he, Machar, was taking over the liberation movement. The claim wasn't vaguely true, and Machar fled to Nasir, where he fomented a rebellion, just as he would 22 years later. In the ensuing ethnic conflict, he and the SPLA were both responsible for mass killings of civilians. Machar managed to bill himself as the natural leader of the Nuer. Eventually he and the SPLA reconciled. But many southerners have never forgiven Machar.

I brought this up, noting that his critics said he was isolating himself now just as he had then. His eyes narrowed. "I didn't isolate myself in 1991. I did very well," he said. Before his break with the SPLA, "people were afraid to talk of right of self-determination for South Sudan, or of independence. Today we're independent. I'm proven right. Self-determination, independence of South Sudan, is us," he said. "And, in particular, it's me."

As he talked, he picked up Why Nations Fail again and brought it to his face, as though intending to channel some historical wisdom. He held the book upside down. "You know, people who fight for freedom, who defend their dignity, to bring about justice," he said, "they don't wait for the international community to accept them, to give them sanction to fight. Or else they would never fight."

I told him about a White Army insurgent I'd met in a hospital who'd been shot while fighting for Malakal. Thousands had been killed in the battles there. I pointed out that the city was not worth it: It was the heart of Nuerland, true, but held little strategic value. Why expend so many lives?

"Why fight over Atlanta?" he said, referring to the American Civil War. "It's a symbol."

Why Nations Fail

It is often said-it has been said countless times in South Sudan-that nothing brings a nation together like grievance. That may be true. But if it is, it is no less true that nothing strangles a nation like grievance.

South Sudan's failure to live up to its noblest aspirations for itself, however, cannot be blamed entirely on Machar, or Kiir, or on any one person or group. The problems go far deeper. The extent to which a half century of near-continuous conflict have brutalized and hollowed out southern Sudanese society cannot be overstated. War, all-encompassing, all-infecting, has robbed the southern Sudanese of their traditions, their livelihoods, their very identities. Two generations of people who might have been farmers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, priests, mothers, fathers have instead become soldiers in a war that never ends. And the violence has left life cheap, unbearable, contemptible even. Independence only brought the violence to an official end, it turns out, not a psychological one. Though independent, many southerners had, by 2011, come to believe, unconsciously or otherwise, the north's scornful conception of them-that they were too combative and selfish to handle liberation.

"The war left behind gaping wounds in the hearts and minds of people about the value of liberation. They asked, liberation to what end?" historian Jok Madut Jok said. The idea that South Sudan could "march home from a war in the bush, and [take] the helms of power, thinking that things can just go on without anybody working to heal these wounds-that was where it all began to fall apart."

On the way back into Ethiopia, one of Machar's generals traveled with Sarah Kier. As they sat in a teahouse awaiting a ride, she told him she wanted to become a field commander. He asked why. Because, she said, he and the other men around Machar were running the rebellion into the ground. They had no plan aside from killing. "If I was in charge of this war, I'd do things differently than you men are, I can tell you that," she told him. "You know, the strategy should not be on the number of lives [taken]."

As though to bear her out, the next week Machar's troops and the White Army retook the city of Bentiu. They drove out government soldiers and, in the process, slaughtered hundreds of civilians. It was the worst atrocity of the war. Images of piled, burnt bodies were broadcast around the world. The U.S. put sanctions on Machar and his allies. Not long after that, government forces overran Nasir. Machar fled. He is now in and out of Addis Ababa, awaiting peace talks that keep getting postponed.

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How the World's Youngest Nation Descended Into Bloody Civil War

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NASIR, South Sudan-When she was a girl, in the 1960s, Sarah Kier's parents fled southern Sudan with her. The Sudanese civil war, in which black-African inhabitants from the country's south were fighting for autonomy against an oppressive Arab-dominated government in the north, had been going on, without respite, for more than a decade.

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The East-Central African country of South Sudan gained independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011. Since then, the nation of 13 million people has struggled to maintain governance and control due to violent civil conflict. This struggle has lead to a dire humanitarian crisis and four million South Sudanese facing displacement.

The Nuer are a prominent and second most populous ethnic group in South Sudan, contributing to 16 percent, or two million people, of the total population. Given this status, the Nuer have stood at the center of the civil Sudanese conflict for decades. These 10 facts about the Nuer of South Sudan offer insight into an ethnic group afflicted most by the South Sudanese Civil War.

10 facts about the Nuer of South Sudan

1. The Nuer live in South Sudan in rural swamps and open savannas on both sides of the Nile River. They are located approximately 500 miles south of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. Due to the civil conflict, the Nuer also inhabit United Nations refugee camps in the South Sudanese capital city of Juba.Nuer also seek refuge in neighboring countries like Uganda, which hosts over a million refugees. Approximately 2.5 million South Sudanese are seeking refuge or asylum protections. The majority of these refugees are women and children.

2. The Nuer of South Sudan are cattle raising pastoralists. Horticulture is also commonly practiced, but less desirable. With more than 80 percent of the populace living in rural areas, cattle have historically been both a cultural and religious symbol, signifying wealth as well as an economic livelihood for the Nuer. Cattle are particularly important as a part of bridewealth exchanges.

3. Since independence, the official language of South Sudan is English, replacing Arabic, but the Nuer traditionally speak the Nuer language. The Nuer language belongs to a subgroup of Nilo-Saharan languages, as a Nilotic language indigenous to the Nile Valley.

4. Despite a high infant mortality rate , South Sudan is the world's youngest country. The infant mortality rate stands at 79 infants per 1,000 live births and the under-five mortality rate is 108 per 1,000 live births. Around 45 percent of the country is between zero and 14 years of age.

5. The Nuer of South Sudan form a cluster of autonomous sections and clans. The North had long sought state control of Nuer land, but neglect of social and political developments provoked two civil wars. This eventually led to South Sudan gaining independence from the North after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 and the Independence Referendum in 2011.There is no structured political system for the Nuer, generating significant conflict. However, dominant clans often hold more significance and elders often make decisions.

6. In 2013, Vice President Riek Machar, a Nuer, was dismissed by the South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, over accusations of a coup attempt against the president. In addition to past support for the North by the Nuer, this sparked massive violence; President Salva Kiir ordered the deaths of thousands of Nuer in the Juba Massacre of 2013. These actions prompted the ongoing civil war in South Sudan.

7. Since the start of the conflict, more than 2.4 million people have been displaced. In the northern part of South Sudan, the United Nations protects civilians in camp Bentiu. Nearly everyone in this camp is Nuer. In February 2017, a group of Dinka soldiers called the Upper Nile State attacked the Bentiu U.N. compound, killing an estimated 300 Nuer civilians.

8. Thousands of Nuer have faced rape, sexual exploitation and attacks on women outside of Protection of Civilian (POC) sites. Studies show that 65 percent of women and girls in South Sudan have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. According to UNICEF, these incidents have occurred continuously over the past two and a half years, increasing with the outbreak of violence.

9. International nonprofit and government agencies like the Nuer International Relief Agency (NIRA), The Red Cross, UNICEF and the U.N. provide humanitarian relief, health and education for war-affected and displaced Nuer. In the first three months of 2018, the International Committee of the Red Cross provided 1,675 metric tons of food, improved access to water for 267,000 people and helped 16,000 people reach family members separated by the conflict. Additionally, these agencies actively advocated and lobbied for successful peace and reconciliation as of June 2018, as well for the support of international communities in addressing the crisis.

10. In May 2018, more than 200 children were released from armed groups in South Sudan. The release was the third this year, totaling to more than 800 child soldiers being freed in 2018. Additional releases are expected in coming months that could result in more than 1,000 children being freed.Despite this success, an estimated 19,000 children continue to serve in armed groups. UNICEF urges for the abolishment of recruitment and for the release of all child soldiers.

These 10 facts about the Nuer of South Sudan show a lot still needs to be done on the ground to address the suffering of Nuer ethnics and all South Sudanese nationals. More than 8 million people are in need of emergency humanitarian assistance in South Sudan. However, on June 28, 2018, warring parties signed a permanent ceasefire in Sudan's capital city Khartoum, calling for an end to the four-and-a-half year civil war. The agreement, signed by President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and Former Vice-President Riek Machar, a Nuer, represents a significant stride towards peace in South Sudan's history and resolution of these crises.
- Joseph Ventura

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Top 10 Facts About the Nuer of South Sudan | The Borgen Project

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The East-Central African country of South Sudan gained independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011. Since then, the nation of 13 million people has struggled to maintain governance and control due to violent civil conflict. This struggle has lead to a dire humanitarian crisis and four million South Sudanese facing displacement.

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These days, when news comes out of South Sudan, it's usually in relation to the country's ongoing civil war and growing refugee crisis. Since 2013, the country has been embroiled in a deadly civil war that's claimed the lives of more than 300,000 people. Brutal tactics on both sides have overshadowed the region's amazing culture and history. In south Sudan, one of the largest ethnic groups are the Dinka, a close-knit assortment of tribes that currently fight with the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) on behalf of South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit, a Dinka himself. If you're not familiar with these noble people and fierce warriors, then prepare to be amazed.

1. No One Knows the Origin of the Word 'Dinka'

It was invented by outsiders, but no one is sure what the word means or why it was applied to the people who would become the Dinka. In truth, the Dinka refer to themselves by an entirely different name. They self-apply either Muonjang or Jieng.

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21 Facts About the Dinka Tribe of South Sudan

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These days, when news comes out of South Sudan, it's usually in relation to the country's ongoing civil war and growing refugee crisis. Since 2013, the country has been embroiled in a deadly civil war that's claimed the lives of more than 300,000 people. Brutal tactics on both sides have overshadowed the region's amazing culture ...

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The largest climate zone in africa by far is the desert the climate there is very hot and humid and hardly ever rains.

The next climate zone is the Savanna has a wet/dry climate it rains sometimes and others i is very humid and hot.

The last climate zone i chose is the Rain forest it is very and and hot mainly because it is near the equatior it also rains very often.

The Black Rhino has a reputation to be extremly agressive. They can grow up to be 800-1,400Kg.

The Great white shark can way up to 5,000 Lbs. Great white are found in lots of places including south africa.

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The African elephant is the largest living terrestrial animal.They can grow up to be 10-131 feet tall and weigh up to 5-6 tons.

The hippopotamus is semi-aquatic lives in river, lakes, and mangrove swamps. The male hippopotamus can weigh up to 3,300 to 4,000 lbs and tthe female can weigh 2,900 to 3,300 lbs.

The Zebra can weigh up to 770Lbs and can be 50-52 inches tall and 6-8.5 feet long.

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The largest climate zone in africa by far is the desert the climate there is very hot and humid and hardly ever rains. The next climate zone is the Savanna has a wet/dry climate it rains sometimes and others i is very humid and hot.