IGCSE Geography / River environments

Case study: managing the Blue Nile in Ethiopia

Edexcel International GCSE Geography (4GE1), chapter 1: River environments, specification point CS1, 1.3b. Part of the full course.

Read the revision notes · IGCSE Geography past papers

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a hydro-electric dam on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. It provides electricity and income, but has caused concern downstream because Egypt and Sudan also depend on the river.

More lessons in River environments

• The hydrological cycle: a closed system and its stores
• Transfers in the hydrological cycle
• Drainage basins and their features
• River regimes and what controls them
• Storm hydrographs
• How rivers erode
• Weathering and mass movement in river valleys
• How rivers carry and drop their load
• Long profile and cross profiles
• How a river changes downstream
• V-shaped valleys, interlocking spurs and waterfalls
• Meanders and oxbow lakes
• Flood plains and levees
• Case study: the River Tay from source to mouth
• Water: uses, rising demand and supply
• Water quality and pollution
• Storing and supplying clean water
• Case study: river management in Spain
• Case study: river management in China
• Why rivers flood
• Predicting and preventing river floods
• River fieldwork: collecting the data
• River fieldwork: results, conclusions and evaluation