Chapter 1227: The Immoral Nile Strategy
The Xingguo Reservoir and the accompanying Xingguo Dam can also be regarded as a business card of East Africa during the Fourth Five-Year Plan period. After all, water conservancy construction, especially hydropower station construction, is a project that can easily leave its name in history.
For example, in the previous life, the Hoover Hydropower Station in the United States, the Dnieper River Hydropower Station in the Soviet Union, the Three Gorges Hydropower Station in the Far Eastern Empire, and the Itaipu Hydropower Station in Brazil and Paraguay.
Although the construction of Xingguo Hydropower Station is not as difficult as these water conservancy projects, the Xingguo Reservoir, the world's largest reservoir, was obtained through opportunistic tricks, which destined its future popularity around the world.
Of course, the construction of the Xingguo Hydropower Station in East Africa is not purely for reputation, but has profound strategic considerations.
The most important of these is naturally water resources. The construction of Xingguo Reservoir is equivalent to adding 200 billion cubic meters of available fresh water resources in East Africa.
This water would have flowed into the Nile River, and eventually flowed into the Mediterranean Sea through the Sudan and Egyptian sections of the Nile River.
As we all know, the Nile River, as the longest river in the world, is not rich in water. Its total annual runoff is only more than 80 billion cubic meters. The Yellow River, which has less water in the Far Eastern Empire, has an annual runoff of more than 50 billion cubic meters. .
Therefore, the entire Nile River Basin is relatively short of water resources. Such water resources are divided among Egypt (including Sudan), the Abyssinian Empire (Ethiopia), and East Africa.
The White Nile River flowing through East Africa has a relatively small amount of water, so it is imperative to occupy more water resources. After all, the Nile Basin and the North Great Lakes Province in East Africa also have large water needs.
The Xingguo Hydropower Station is just an important node in East Africa's Nile River strategy. East Africa downstream of it will build water blocking facilities layer by layer to ensure that the Nile River water efficiency in the East African section is maximized.
At the same time as the Tongxingguo Hydropower Station, there are more than 20 large and small projects such as the Gezira City Dam and the Kagera Hydropower Station. From the source to the end to the East African border, we ensure that the Nile River in East Africa is clearly arranged.
As for the life and death of Egypt downstream, that is not a concern for East Africa, although the water volume of the Nile in the Egyptian section, including Sudan, mainly comes from the Blue Nile.
However, we cannot but say that the White Nile is not important. During the dry season of the Nile, the White Nile contributes more than 80% to the downstream branches of the Nile.
This means that if the "Nile River Strategy" in East Africa is completed, Egypt and Sudan as a whole will face more serious water problems during the dry season.
Of course, East Africa can be considered as leaving a way for the Egyptians to survive. After all, it is impossible for East Africa to prevent water from flowing into Egypt, and the water demand of Egypt's population during this period is far less than in previous generations.
Nowadays, the total population of Egypt is only over 10 million, including the total population of Sudan. In the previous life, Egypt had a population of more than 100 million, and Sudan had a population of nearly 50 million. The combined population of the two countries is 100 million. More than fifty million.
In other words, Egypt's current population is only about one-fifteenth of Egypt's population in the previous 21st century, so the demand for water resources is even less.
After the completion of the "Nile Strategy" in East Africa, it will put huge pressure on Egypt (Sudan)'s agricultural, domestic, and industrial water use in the future.
Agricultural water can be solved by relying on the Blue Nile River, but industrial and domestic water use obviously cannot be solved in this way. After all, during the dry season of the Nile River, it is impossible for Egyptians to reduce water consumption or shut down factories.
This is exactly what Ernst wants. Ernst does not want Egypt in this time and space to grow as fast as in the previous life. After all, Egypt is completely different from East Africa in terms of belief and race, and the two countries are bordering areas.
In his previous life, Egypt was one of the main sources of refugees in Europe. Ernst did not want Egyptians to run along the Nile River into East Africa. Although most of the areas bordering Egypt and East Africa are deserts, this kind of climate isolation is not safe. After all, Europe and Egypt There is a Mediterranean Sea across the way!
Therefore, Ernst has only one path for future Egyptians, which is to control the country's population growth. Otherwise, Egypt's situation in the future will only be worse than in the previous life. This move can be considered a lesson learned from Americans in previous generations. The upper reaches of the Colorado River in America are in the United States and its mouth is in Mexico. In previous generations, the United States intercepted most of the water in the Colorado River, leaving only about 10% of the water for Mexico. The United States uses the intercepted water for domestic industry, agriculture and domestic life, and part of California's water source comes from this.
The "Nile Strategy" in East Africa can be regarded as replicating the approach of Americans in previous generations.
The benefits to East Africa of this kind of behavior that benefits others at the expense of others are also obvious. First of all, the construction of these water conservancy facilities can provide East Africa with a large amount of electricity and support the development of surrounding cities.
For example, the construction of the Xingguo Hydropower Station in Zinga City. After the construction of the Xingguo Hydropower Station is completed, Zinga City will have a large amount of cheap power resources to support the city's industrial development. This is also the main reason for the current urban expansion of Zinga City.
Secondly, the extra 200 billion cubic meters of fresh water resources can ensure harvests near the main stream of the Nile River in East Africa during droughts and floods, ensuring water security downstream, which is especially of great significance to the Nile River Province in East Africa.
Although the development of the Nile River Province in East Africa is weak, this does not mean that the Nile River Province is not important to East Africa. The agricultural conditions in the Nile River Province are still good and a large number of farms and plantations can be built, and these farms and plantations are extremely dependent on Water resources of the Nile River.
The desert areas represented by the city of Gezira downstream are even more dependent on the water resources of the Nile River. The wheat and cotton of Gezira City are relatively famous in East Africa, and the local industry is also relatively good. These are big water consumers.
At the same time, the construction of this batch of water conservancy projects will also greatly improve the shipping conditions in the Nile River Basin in inland East Africa. To ensure the stability of the Nile River water volume in East Africa, more water will naturally be intercepted.
In fact, East Africa's "Nile River Strategy" intercepts more than 200 billion cubic meters of water resources in the Xingguo Reservoir, and also includes the interception of water from many tributaries in the downstream Nile River provinces.
In fact, the Great Lakes area where the Xingguo Reservoir is located does not lack water, and the precipitation in the southern part of the Nile River Province is not small. However, the seasonal distribution of precipitation in East Africa is uneven.
At the same time, because East Africa is located in the tropics, evaporation is very high, which is the main reason for the low water volume of the White Nile.
The water of the White Nile has not yet flowed into Egypt, so a lot of it will be naturally lost along the way, and even less when it reaches the core area of Egypt after passing Sudan.
This situation is actually quite common across East Africa, especially in places where savannah climate areas and tropical desert climate areas meet, such as the transition zone between the East African Plateau and the Somali Desert. The intersection of the Bohemian Province (northern Zimbabwe) and the Kalahari Basin in central East Africa, or the intersection of Angola and Namibia on the west coast of East Africa.
After all, these areas are all in East Africa. Even when building water conservancy facilities and allocating water resources in East Africa, local ecology, people's livelihood, and industrial and agricultural development will be fully considered.
The Nile River Basin is completely different. The lower reaches of the Nile River are not East African territory, and the life and death of the Egyptians is obviously not within the scope of East Africa's consideration.
There are only two ways out for Egypt in the future, which is to stabilize the Abyssinian Empire, ensure stable water supply from the Blue Nile, and maintain population growth at a low level.
If it cannot do the above, then Egypt can only learn from the practices of its previous life and live in various European countries.
Anyway, Ernst would not be a "good Samaritan" like Europe. Even if East Africa wants to receive immigrants in the future, they can also receive immigrants from its own colonies, or from Europe and the Far East Empire. It can be said that the current overseas expansion of East Africa is all for the Rhine people. This new nation that East Africa is pushing to make room for survival.
(End of chapter)