Geography
The Nile River Basin extends through eleven countries and has two major tributaries, the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The White Nile flows from Lake Victoria and the mountains of Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (“DRC”). The Blue Nile is composed of waters from Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan. The Blue Nile and White Nile meet at Khartoum, Sudan, to form the main body of the Nile, which then flows through Egypt to empty into the Mediterranean Sea
About 300 million people rely on the waters of the Nile, and population growth rates in the region are projected to soar (Salman and Salman, 2013). 9 Much of this population relies almost exclusively on the Nile as its source of freshwater. The Nile, for example, is essentially Egypt's only source of water.10 The vast majority of Egypt's rapidly expanding population lives in the Nile Valley, and the agricultural sector, which constitutes a significant portion of the Egyptian economy, is heavily dependent on crops that require extensive irrigation. Ethiopia's population is growing at an even faster rate than Egypt's population, establishing a compelling need for increased food production and more extensive use of the Nile waters for agricultural purposes (Brunnée and Toope, 2002).