{"id":20134819,"date":"2026-07-16T11:47:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T09:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dabangasudan.org\/?p=20134819"},"modified":"2026-07-16T12:51:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T10:51:33","slug":"from-abundance-to-retreat-what-happened-to-nile-water-levels-in-sudan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dabangasudan.org\/en\/all-news\/article\/from-abundance-to-retreat-what-happened-to-nile-water-levels-in-sudan","title":{"rendered":"From abundance to retreat: what happened to Nile water levels in Sudan?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Residents of El Salha area, south of Omdurman, have been left with little choice but to buy water or rely on brackish wells after the area\u2019s main water station stopped operating when the Nile receded, leaving the pumps stranded above the waterline. The crisis has now entered its second week, affecting thousands of families.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One resident told Radio Dabanga<\/em> that water supplies had been cut for six consecutive days and would enter a seventh day tomorrow. The latest outage comes only three days after a previous interruption that had already lasted an entire week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Families have been forced to buy water delivered in barrels, with the price of a single barrel reaching SDG10,000. Many residents are instead relying on salty groundwater from wells including the Musa Abdeen well, the Nour Aldayem factory well, and another located near the water station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resident said the underlying problem was that the area surrounding the pumps had dried out after the river channel shifted away from the intake points. Authorities have deployed heavy machinery and loaders to excavate a new channel that will allow water to reach the pump wells once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the station had begun gradually resuming operations, although supplies had yet to reach all neighbourhoods because of the size of the service area. Water is first being pumped to the villages of El Salha before extending to Salha El Gai\u2019a, Salha El Zalat and other districts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Race to restart the station<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the crisis deepened and complaints mounted, the Khartoum state government announced that it was racing against time to restore operations at El Salha water station. It acknowledged that the unusually low level of the Blue Nile had left the intake pumps out of service, cutting supplies to several neighbourhoods and villages south of Omdurman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khartoum Governor Ahmed Othman Hamza visited the station and ordered the mobilisation of excavators and heavy equipment to open a new water channel and remove silt. He also instructed officials to provide alternative water supplies for residents during the shutdown and called for permanent solutions, including relocating the pumps closer to the river\u2019s main channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohamed Ahmed Awad, director of the Khartoum State Water Corporation, said technical teams were working to restore the station within one or two days. He also announced the start of a project to drill two high-yield boreholes to provide a backup water source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awad said it was highly unusual for the Nile to remain at such low levels in July, attributing the situation to delayed rainfall and weak flows from seasonal rivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Khartoum Water Corporation blamed the crisis on the unusually low July water levels, infrastructure, water resources and dams expert Eng. Abubakr Mohamed El Mustafa offered a broader technical explanation in an interview with Radio Dabanga<\/em>, drawing on developments during the current hydrological year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From exceptional abundance to declining inflows<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

El Mustafa said the hydrological year, spanning October 2025 to June 2026, had seen exceptional water abundance. Daily inflows into the White Nile at Jebel Aulia Dam ranged between 100 and 200 million cubic metres, while the Blue Nile at Roseires Dam received between 150 and 200 million cubic metres per day. As a result, water levels in the Blue Nile, White Nile and the main Nile remained consistently high throughout the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that releases from Merowe Dam towards Egypt\u2019s High Aswan Dam never fell below 300 million cubic metres a day. This filled Lake Nasser to capacity, prompting the opening of the High Dam spillway and, later, the Toshka spillway in October 2025 to divert excess water into Egypt\u2019s Western Desert. The result, he said, was a highly favourable water situation across the Nile Valley in both Sudan and Egypt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to El Mustafa, that picture changed at the beginning of July when several factors combined to reduce river inflows. Chief among them were the start of the agricultural season, the release of irrigation water to the Gezira and El Managil schemes, and declining flows in both the Blue and White Nile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained that water released from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) to Sudan\u2019s El Deim monitoring station ranged between 150 and 180 million cubic metres a day before reaching Roseires Dam. Around 160 million cubic metres a day was then released from Roseires, while outflows from Sennar Dam dropped to between 80 and 100 million cubic metres because of irrigation demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, inflows in the White Nile fell to around 90 million cubic metres a day during July. Combined flows in the two rivers after their confluence therefore declined to around 180 million cubic metres a day, compared with roughly 300 million cubic metres during previous months. This led to a rapid fall in river levels, exposing stretches of riverbank, higher ground and sandbanks at several locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did El Salha station stop working?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact of lower river flows extended beyond the falling river level itself, directly affecting drinking water stations, particularly El Salha, where the river\u2019s main channel had shifted away from the pump intakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

El Mustafa said water stations had operated throughout the previous year with consistently high and stable water levels, meaning the seasonal retreat normally seen in earlier years had not occurred. When the river level dropped by around three metres, however, the pump and pipeline intakes also needed to be lowered by the same amount in order to continue drawing water from the main channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stressed that the situation did not represent a sharp decline in Sudan\u2019s overall water resources or indicate that the country had entered a period of drought. Rather, it reflected lower inflows in the Blue and White Nile, weaker flows in the main Nile, the effects of storage and operation at the GERD, and increased withdrawals for agricultural irrigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

El Mustafa expects river inflows to improve during July, August and September as the rainy season progresses. He said water released from the GERD through its electricity-generating turbines was unlikely to fall below 150 million cubic metres a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite his expectation of improving conditions in the coming weeks, he cautioned that the outcome of the rainy season remains dependent on climatic developments. His assessment echoes warnings from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which has forecast increasingly volatile weather across the region during the second half of the year, with periods of drought potentially followed by heavy rainfall and flooding. The regional body has urged governments to prepare for the likely impact on water resources and agriculture, while other forecasting centres have also warned of the possibility of dry spells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions remain<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources at Sudan\u2019s Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation told Radio Dabanga<\/em> that the unusually low water levels have not only affected El Salha water station but have also disrupted operations at the North Bahri station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sources said the ministry has yet to issue an official statement explaining the immediate causes of the falling water levels or clarifying whether they are linked to the operation or storage regime at the GERD, the delayed rainy season, or the effects of climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They added that there remains a shortage of official information explaining the phenomenon, while technical assessments of the country\u2019s water situation continue.<\/p>\n