The Sudd Sustainable Development: Contextualizing the current flooding levels in South Sudan and the Nile Basin region
10 min read
By Deng Majok Chol, High Point, NC, USA
Thursday, August 13, 2020 (PW) — The Nile River is the longest river in the world, called the father of African rivers. It rises south of the Equator and flows northward through northeastern Africa to drain into the Mediterranean Sea. It has a length of about 4,132 miles (6,650 kilometres) and drains an area estimated at 1,293,000 square miles (3,349,000 square kilometres). The Nile Basin includes parts of Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Sudan, and the cultivated part of Egypt. Its most distant source is the Kagera River in Burundi. (Britannica.com)
The Sudd and her water sources, if managed properly, can be the greatest economic asset South Sudan has. It can be way more precious and more rewarding than the petroleum sector.
The ongoing levels of flooding in South Sudan and in some of the countries within the Nile Basin are gravely concerning. The South Sudanese populations in Upper Nile region, in particular, appear sandwiched between the uncontrollable flooding that has grabbed cities by its throat (thereby choking the states) and the intractable inter-communal feud over cattle, land, Child abduction and cultures. This is quite unfortunate.
Both the long-term hydrological threats been demanding long term solutions from South Sudanese generation after generation, and the rising generations appear more audacious, more equipped, and more imagining to finally attend to unanswered calls over the past centuries.
While I am a budding authority on the dimensions of water, society and sustainable development, my preliminary study on the Nile River System in general shows global warming is dialing up sea levels, and the temperatures of the Indian Ocean have been rising. This phenomenon seems responsible for massive precipitations over land – at the sources of the Nile, namely Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, DRC -owing to atmospheric pressures that carried evaporations across and over the regions. This is further compounded by the effects of intertropical convergence Zone over the hot equator. In fact, most of the rains that inundated Uganda, South Sudan, and Ethiopian in 2018, 2019, and part of this year’s water is shown to have originated from the warming temperatures of the Indian Ocean.
Given the massiveness of Lake Victoria as a transboundary water body, or a reservoir so to speak, all of the precipitation that originates from the equatorial countries or the mountains of the moons as our ancestors in ancient Egypt referred to the sources of the Nile, finds it way either visibly (runoffs) or invisibly (infiltration-underground) into Lake Victoria. A more visualized analogy of Lake Victoria and its unique hydrological role as a transboundary reservoir could be found in our imagination of a gigantic toothless beast that swallows all through seven or more mouths but with an inactive metabolism and only one disposal exit.
So, with only one outlet to South Sudan through Jinja, Lake Victoria belly has been experiencing rising water levels. To this effect, a few weeks ago, the Ugandan authority has issued a statement like a decree for all populations living adjacent to the Lakes, dams, the Nile River itself to evacuate immediately.
And coming to South Sudan, the current flooding levels, whether from precipitation or as an overflow from the Nile, demonstrate lack of coordinated water resources management by multiple experts and public officials such as urban planners, land surveyors, hydrologists, pedologists , among others.
Are traditional informal coping mechanisms still effective in the face of increasing seasonal flooding in South Sudan? The tribal indigenous populations of the Shilluk, Nuer, Dinka, Murle, Jur Chol, and tribes of Equatoria region along the White Nile course have tried to co-exist or even co-evolve with water for centuries. The hydrological threats are multifaceted phenomena that require solution from multiplayers including the Indigenous populations in the Sudd Wetland Basin.
In this budding process of studying the Nile River System, and the Sudd, I am quickly forming an increasingly authoritative view that South Sudan does not have too much water. I know this is such an audacious observation to make at the current time when cities and villages are squarely submerged in floods. But, let us call a spade a spade. South Sudan does not have too much water; the country just does not have sustainable integrated water resources management.
Look it up, the seasonal flooding lasts two to three months, but the dry season, during which the country lacks water and its clay soils crack up, lasts about four months.
The point is that I hope we do not continue to fail to see how our societies lack effective water management skills. Consideringthat, I caution South Sudanese NOT to cry out loud, “THE WATER IS TOO MUCH!” or else Egypt has open ears and will quickly seize those voices to legitimize their century long quest for the waters of the Sudd. The last thing South Sudan wants to see in her attempt to manage its waters would be the resumption of the Jonglei Canal, which has been studied at length, and rendered not a viable solution to the water crisis in the South Sudan.
However, due to climate change, global warming, there has been increasing hydrological variability of the Nile River system. Fluctuating between years of drought and those of prolonged flooding levels that almost march those of 1960s, 1980s, among other record floods.
The White Nile River System, especially citing the unique role of transboundary reservoir (Lake Victoria, named so during the Queen Victoria Exploration Expedition) defines what I have termed as “the paradox of the Sudd”: On the one hand, the Sudd Basin — from Mongalla, the Boma Plateau, Bahr El Arab, Bahr El Ghazal, all tributaries forming massive confluence around Malakal with the Sobat River and the Machar Marshes — has been key source of livelihoods for millions of South Sudanese and a home to a massive self-sustained ecosystem, but on the otherhand, the Sudd Basin has seemingly been an impediment to modern economic development due to its flooding that poses threat to human lives, and human settlements.
The majority of the waters of the Sudd flooding comes from the overflow of the White Nile through the multiplicity of the channels within the Sudd plain, with water from the Equatorial Lakes catchment as far as Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Congo, and from the Ethiopia Highland, and the rest is attributable to local runoff and direct precipitation over the entire catchment mostly during the wet seasons.
There ought to be a realization that the current tribal mechanisms of adaptations in South Sudan during seasonal flooding are absolutely limited and can no longer sustain survivals. A new level of thinking is therefore needed to protect the societies from the threats of waters in the short, medium, and long-term horizons.
The real bad news for societies like South Sudan that have not mastered any proven effective mechanisms in managing the threats of water is that climate change, global warming, and effects of Intertropical convergence zones will continue to cause rising in sea level and the precipitation frequency and intensity will continue to increase over unforeseeable periods .
I am afraid more flooding is bound to occur in South Sudan for the next half a decade or more according the current trends informed by data. Therefore, the South Sudan national authority,and the societies that are usually affected by seasonal flooding need to refocus their energies and resources to a model of integrated water resources management. Human and water can no longer continue to coexist or co-evolve naturally as has been the case for the last several centuries. However, the needed structural intervention whether on a small or large scale must be preceded by scientific studies.
In order to cope with these trends, South Sudan authorities and societies need to have concerted efforts in (1) short-term mechanisms of coping, 6 months to 1 year, (2) medium, 3 years to 5 years, and 3) long-term, 6 to 15 years.
The Ministry of Water Resources, and Irrigation should (1) shoulder the responsibility of flood mitigation at national level and across all ten states, paying particular attention to societies and geographies that are disproportionally affected by the flooding, (2) the Presidency, or the Parliament, or the Cabinet of Ministers should craft a piece of legislature that mandates flood budgets for the next 3 years, (3) The Ministry of Water Resources, and Irrigation needs to champion the flooding as a cause to advance its understanding of the processes and implications of climate change in coupled human and natural systems, (4) The Ministry should be busy developing and analyzing potential economic and social responses, policies and management practices of relevance to national Government, state and local authorities, business, NGOs, and local communities, and (5) The Ministry of Water Resources and irrigation conceive and establish National Flood and DroughtTechnical Team, Disaster Management Relief Team, DMRT, and station portions of the team in each of the ten states.
Again, South Sudan DOES NOT have too much water; it just need to exercise leadership over its water resources and adopt Integrated Water Resources Management framework that doesn’t leave states and local communities in silos in their responses to the threat of both flood and drought.
Aluta continua! victoria acerta!
The author, Deng Majok Chol Jok, is a South Sudanese American doctoral student, DPhil Student, Oxford University, School of Geography and The Environment Dissertation Topic: Ecosystem Services of the Sudd: Understanding the Socio-Hydrological Dynamics of Seasonal Flooding in the Sudd Wetland of South Sudan. Doctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT), Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. He can be reached via his email: Deng_chol@hks15.harvard.edu ; dengmchol@yahoo.com
Deng Majok Chol Jok’s Biography.
Education: After moving to the United States from Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya to the USA, Deng attended Arizona State University and graduated, as the First Lost Boy to graduate from U.S. University, with a B.S. in Political Science and minor in Economics, and went on to graduate with a 2 year-Master of Business Administration, MBA, from George Washington University and a second 2 year-Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University. While at Arizona State and Harvard, he was the President of Arizona State African Student Association and a Co-Chair of Harvard Kennedy School Student Ambassadors as well as a Dubin fellow at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership.Deng has direct experiences working with multilateral agencies: World Bank, International Finance Corporation, International Monetary Fund; USAID, U.S. Congress; Humanitarian agencies.
Key Publications: 1) A “New” Path for Managing Oil Revenues and Governance in South Sudan; 2) A wake up Call to South Sudan Seeds of Nation Generation; 3) South Sudan investor guide with the International Finance Corporation, IFC; 5) South Sudan Energy Assessment towards sustainable development, in collaboration with Humanity United.
Presentations: Spoke at 1) At the Reunion of the Lost Boys in Washington, DC 2003 to representatives of US Government and UN advocating for peace in the Sudan and in support of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA); 2) At the First Conference of the Lost Boys and Reunion with Dr. John Garangwith SPLA/M High Command in support of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA); 3) High Level Panel” on “Strengthening the International Development Response to Forced Displacement”, at the World Bank, Washington, D.C ; 4) “ Advancing Good Governance in International Development Goals, Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs in Oxford, England; 4) A panelist at Two Sudan (s): The Paths Forward, Harvard; 6) the Advancing Solutions for Refugees and IDPs: New Partners, New Measures, Cambridge, US.; 7) Presented a written Speech, on behalf of the Lost Boys and Girls Community in the U.S., to SPLM Secretariats at the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) 2nd National Convention,Juba, South Sudan, May, 2008. .
Current Status: Deng is PhD student at Oxford University pursuing DPhil in Geography and The Environment, (Department: School of Geography and The Environment) with a dissertation research topics: Ecosystem Services of the Sudd: Understanding the Socio-Hydrological Dynamics of Seasonal Flooding in the Sudd Wetland of South Sudan. His research is being supported by Professors from Oxford, MIT, Harvard, University of Colorado Boulder, Duke University, and Furman University, who are mostly water engineers, environmental engineers, economists, climate and environmental risk, civil and environmental, and architectural engineering, political science, foreign policy decision-making and peace and conflict studies, public policy, global environmental politics and environmental security, global environmental politics and governance, environmental conflict and peacebuilding, the political economy of the resource curse, energy policy; environmental health; environmental policy–International cooperation
Professional working experiences: Deng had been with Samaritan’s Purse for the past three years as the Global Humanitarian Technical Advisor on programming on displaced and refugee populations, victims of human trafficking, child soldiers, gender-based violence among various other vulnerable populations. And more recently at the beginning of 2020, Deng has joined the Center for Global Change Science (CGCS), Massachusetts institute of technology, MIT, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, EAPS, MIT School of Science, as a Project Assistance in the Southern Africa – Toward Integrated Economic Development (SA-TIED) IFPRI. In this new capacity, Deng’s focus areas include but not limited to the:
• Studies literature sources on the White Nile and SuddWetland of South Sudan.
• Studies Okavango Delta and wetland, and its basin development projects that involves Angola, Botswana, and Namibia.
• Studies of Zambezi Strategic Plan and Zambezi River Multisectoral Basin Development Scenarios that involves Angola, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, and Tanzania.
• Opportunities and threats for sustainable farming for small holder subsistence farming in Southern Africa
• Explores the resources of the Invisible 60 percent of the rain fed subsistence farming in Southern Africa.
Books Authored: Deng is authoring an intimate, amazing, and inspiring autobiography: “Phoenix Rising: A Lost Boy’s Tale of Beauty for Ashes.”
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