#NILE River Basin

[segsabase]

Analysis of An Absence of Governance & Multilateral Cooperation in Combating Environmental Degradation

– A Review of the Lake Chad Basin Development (LCBDC) & The Nile River Basin (NRB) Countries – Olusegun Ehinfun, MBA PhD. Candidate and Paul R. Sachs, PhD, MBA Summary: Balancing national interest, regional collaboration and economic sustainability will be even more important in a world where climate change affects the distribution of key resources such as water. Leaders must be proactive in…

[fishfolkart]

African Carp - its classification name is Labeo coubie and it is a member of the Carp family. It is widespread throughout Northern and Eastern Africa, including the Nile River Basin. It mainly feeds on waste or debris. It can reach a maximum length of 75.0 cm (about 30 inches) and a maximum published weight of 5.0 kg (11 pounds). All profits from sale will be given to the Lighthouse Mission to assist the homeless. https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/147847387

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

German Army, “Finding Only Dust,” Allocations of The American Nile. Jungle Gym Records, 2022.

[wachinyeya]

Sugarcane is a widely grown crop in the Nile Basin, but its destructive effects on soils, water resources and biodiversity have become increasingly apparent.

As the thirsty crop draws down water resources, aquatic species like the critically endangered Nubian flapshell turtle suffer a loss of habitat, forage and nesting sites.

In an effort to revive soils, diversify diets and incomes, and boost water levels that many animals rely on, communities are implementing agroforestry projects in lieu of monocultures.

The resulting “food forests” attract an array of wildlife while refilling wetlands and river systems where the culturally important flapshell turtles swim.

[mapsontheweb]

French explorations in Africa in the 19th century

« Nouvel atlas de l'histoire de France », Autrement, 2016

by cartesdhistoire

In the 19th century, a vast movement of exploration of lands unknown to Europeans developed, supported by scientific institutions. The figure of the explorer became familiar to the public, and their stories contributed to the creation of a specific imagination, filled with exoticism and adventure. Perhaps the most evocative name is that of René Caillie, the first Westerner to reach Timbuktu. Another remarkable figure is Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, a French naval officer born in Italy who explored the Congo (1874-1882).

From the 1880s to the 1890s, European expansion accelerated from sometimes ancient coastal footholds, such as French and British forts in West Africa or Portuguese ones in Angola. The Berlin Conference (1884-1885) set the rules, enforcing effective occupation of land to colonize it. It also guaranteed freedom of movement and trade on major rivers (Niger, Congo). The drawing of colonial boundaries, often complex to define on the ground in densely populated areas, and the colored plaques on the maps should not mask the fact that the appropriation of the territory was progressive and often very loose.

During the conquest, the military consisted of the powers in place (sometimes themselves of European origin, as in the Boer republics of Orange and Transvaal, which eventually became British in 1902). Treaties to share the territories multiplied, which did not avoid crises like the one at Fashoda in 1898, where the French and British clashed for control of the Upper Nile—and more broadly for the completion of their expansion projects: the Dakar-Djibouti link for the French, and the Cairo-to-Cape Town axis for the British. This led to the extension of British influence over the entire Nile basin.

[ivystoryweaver]

Deeper - Orestes

Orestes + Edgeplay/love bites/teratophilia

Kinktober Masterlist || Misc. Masterlist || Main Masterlist

"...his lips were the first of many beautiful pieces of his body and soul you sought to devour."

Notes: Reader is El Naddaha (If you’re not familiar, it’s kind of like a Nile River Siren/Djinn). I’m definitely no expert, but I am aware that this legend/myth came long after Orestes’ time. This is just for fun! Edgeplay-ish, reader is not human, p in v, oral -f. rec., danger, orgasm denial

Word Count: 1.8k

The first time you saw him, he stood as regal as a statue, with the beauty of a god. You were familiar with the gods - he wasn’t one, but they must have chiseled him from something precious. The cut of his jaw alone would make the most brilliant sculptor envious.

Wild wind whipped through inky curls as the setting sun glistened, dancing over his bronzed skin. The smooth tenor of his voice danced across the water as he shared a laugh with his companion.

He turned to gaze out over the River Nile, strong arms gripping the side of the boat. With eyes deep and brown as basin mud and a bright, self-assured smile, you wondered who was luring whom.

The sun finally set and Orestes disembarked, dismissing his council so he could take an evening stroll along the river’s shore.

Seizing your opportunity, you emerged from the water, eyes fixed on your prey. A song, intoxicating and wistful bellowed alluringly from your throat. You sang a haunting melody, your voice turning and flowing like the waters of the Nile itself.

You watched him pause, turning his head, listening to the song of his doom. “Hello?”

Your song continued, note after note spinning in the air, weaving your spell to ensnare this beautiful mortal. His eyes drifted closed as he leaned in to the allure, muscled body swaying gently to the tune.

Gliding toward him, you concluded your song, waiting patiently as he opened his eyes.

His breath hitched as he beheld you. “You frightened me.”

“Surely not the mighty Orestes.” Even words spoken gripped his soul and sent a mildly terrifying thrill through his body.

Wetting plush lips, his gaze raked over the shimmering, white dress draped over your beautiful, nearly glowing skin. Raven hair flowed down over both shoulders, a midnight waterfall cascading to your thighs. Your eyes were bottomless wells, deep, dark and unknowable.

“I’m afraid I do not know your name.” Boldly easing forward, he extended his hand. “I very much wish to.”

You smiled charmingly, offering your hand and your name in return.

Lifting your fingers to his lips, he laid a gentle kiss there, lingering as if your very touch intoxicated him.

“Do you walk here often?” You asked him sweetly, holding onto his hand as you slipped into the slight space separating your bodies.

“I do, but I’ve never seen you here. In fact, I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful in all my days.”

Tangling your fingers with his, you pressed your breasts against his chest. “But I’ve seen you. I’ve been waiting for you, Orestes.”

“For me?” He choked, shuddering breath ghosting your lips.

“Only for you.” Brushing your lips over his, you swallowed his gasp of surprise at a young lady’s boldness. But you were no lady. And his lips were the first of many beautiful pieces of his body and soul you sought to devour.

Nibbling down the side of his neck, you reveled in his sigh as you littered his salty skin with wet sucks dark enough to mark but not wound.

Strong hands gripped your hips, intent on manipulating your body, but you were too quick.

Nimble fingers flicked aside linen garments, until you could feel the hot, fleshy weight of him in your palm. Pushing your thumb over his leaking tip, you, twisted your wrist, working up and down his length while sucking wet marks all over his neck and collarbone.

His beautiful gasps and moans were your drug. Cheeks flushed, his breath caught, full lips parted and panting as you slid your hand over and over his shaft. Broad hips stuttered as he neared his pleasure, but you did not let him come, instead withdrawing your heated touch.

A pathetic beg chased after your hand - the appeal of it as powerful as the songs you spun on strings of air.

"Undress for me," you commanded.

His obedience was instant and eager. The exposure and neediness brimming in his earthen eyes, firing the pulse in his corded neck, kept his thick, long cock erect as you pulled your shimmering dress free of your shoulders, allowing it to spill down over your breasts. It pooled at the swell of your hips long enough for him to lose his breath, before cascading to the ground below.

Surging forward, he dropped to his knees, hastily pressing a kiss to your mound before gazing up into your haunting, limitless orbs.

"Allow me to taste you - to treasure you as the goddess you must be."

This pleased you.

You granted him the illusion of control as he laid your naked body down on the muddy bank and tasted the nectar of your core.

Few men were so bold - at least not in any kind of enticing way. But his tongue was an offering, lavishing worship, gliding through your wet folds.

Countless nights passed since you'd felt this good with a mortal. As he sank his tongue deep inside you, pushing at your human-like anatomy with his prominent nose, you realized you desired to come in his mouth.

Your hips eagerly rose to meet the thrust and wet pulse of his tongue. Threading fingers through his locks, you pushed his face hard against your cunt, fucking yourself with more delight than you remembered feeling in many a mortal lifetime.

Your back arched in rapture as you gushed all over his tongue and lips and chin, even down onto his neck.

Releasing him, you heard him desperately gasp for air, choking, "I...can't breathe..." Just the thought of this beautiful mortal drowning and suffocating in your core left you yearning for me.

Soaked and blissed out, you rolled on top of him and sank down on his length, the desperate little noises pouring out of him your new addiction. You moaned in satisfaction as he stretched and filled you. For a mere mortal, he fucked like a god. You'd lain with plenty enough to know.

Rolling your hips slow and deep, you gripped his chin, forcing him to peer into your eyes. Moonlight kissed your naked skin as you vigorously rode him - your bodies wet with mud and slick.

He incoherently mumbled how beautiful you were, how good you felt, how you must be something out of a dream.

The stretch of him inside you became so delicious, a second, harder orgasm washed over you, sending your back arching wildly and your cunt fluttering and gripping the hard, heavy cock buried so deep up in you.

Orestes' jaw fell open, his sculpted yet soft body tense and ready to burst like ripe fruit, but you abruptly pulled yourself off him, so quickly and violently that he sobbed out a plea, tears falling as you stopped him cold once again.

You granted him the explanation that no man had ever come inside you and no man ever would.

“I will,” he told you with fierce determination.

“Only if you follow me.” You coyly wet your lips.

Practically crawling toward you, half covered in mud - the rest in sweat and your slick - he offered, “Anywhere. I will do anything.”

You waded into the cool and refreshing water - your home - your domain. Orestes willingly and desperately followed, clinging to you as you led him close to his doom.

His lips fused with yours, hands reaching to hoist your thighs around the broadness of his hips. Your legs encircled his waist, and his hands roamed the curves of your body as he pushed his way deep inside you again.

Your powers calmed the water and infused it with the faintest glow so you could see your naked bodies bobbing and fucking, twisting and writhing.

He felt so good, you almost hated to end his life. Almost.

But there would be others you could lure to their doom, as there always had been.

Hungry hands pulled at your shoulders, pressing your lower back, lifting your thigh. He manipulated your body and fucked you harder and harder, with deep, agonizingly powerful thrusts.

"You'll take all of me now," he declared.

But you would not.

He ached with the need to come, to release, to not be denied.

"Soon, Orestes. You have delighted me more than any other man. Come with me once more and I'll let you plant your seed deep in my womb."

"Promise me," he whimpered, then kissed you fiercely. "Swear that I may come inside you."

"I swear it shall be the pinnacle of your lifetime."

You instructed him to breathe deeply before pulling him under, down further than humans normally swam. And deeper still.

You could tell when he jerked against you, desperate for air. You kept going, kicking your powerful legs down to the bottom of the river, where cold darkness awaited.

Just when he really started to panic, you breathed life saving breath into his mouth and lungs while creating a bubble under the water, holding it at bay to create a space for him to breathe.

Terrified, he wanted to swim away, but you sang a couple of melodious lines to soothe him as you touched his naked body again.

He was easily taken back under your spell and responded to your touch, cock stirred to desperate yearning, despite the river's cold depths.

You spoke, and somehow, he could hear you, asking him if he would like to come.

He nodded dumbly, body suspended in your home, drunk on worship of your touch, your voice.

How many had you lured to this depth?

He was special though.

"Orestes, answer me this: would you like to come inside me, even if I allow these waters to take all the air from your lungs?"

You craved his ultimate devotion, though you'd never asked a mortal his wishes before this night.

He nodded stupidly, a wet mess of want and twisted desire. A victorious pulse fluttered in your cunt as you guided his cock inside you, your bodies twisting into a delicious rhythm together - a beautiful tempo to match the enticing spell of your melodies.

You let him have his way. He gripped your hips and fucked you furiously, so desperate to finally come, to claim you. You traced over all the dark bites you left on his perfect, bronzed skin, visible only to your eyes at this depth.

As he erupted inside you, he kissed you wildly, filling you hot and deep, crying out in relief and thanking you profusely.

Satisfied and victorious, you let the water crash back over the two of you, keeping him inside you, gripping him tight with your cunt as he gulped in water, choking and struggling until he breathed his last.

Witnessing the life fade away from his sparkling eyes sent power and possession surging through you. The thrill of your victory hurled you to orgasm once more, squeezing the remaining life out of his cock.

Your lifeless conquest floated in front of you, and you thought, for a moment, that the cold, dark depths, perhaps, did not suit him.

Orestes woke on the banks of the Nile, soaked, naked and coughing, gasping for air. He should have known that you were a vicious creature and not a beautiful woman.

But the next night, your song lured him again.

Kinktober Masterlist || Misc. Masterlist || Main Masterlist

[whencyclopedia]

Ancient Egyptian Agriculture

Agriculture was the foundation of the ancient Egyptian economy and vital to the lives of the people of the land. Agricultural practices began in the Delta Region of northern Egypt and the fertile basin known as the Faiyum in the Predynastic Period in Egypt (c. 6000 - c. 3150 BCE), but there is evidence of agricultural use and overuse of the land dating back to 8000 BCE.

Egyptologist and historian Margaret Bunson defines ancient Egyptian agriculture as "the science and practice of the ancient Egyptians from predynastic times that enabled them to transform an expanse of semiarid land into rich fields after each inundation of the Nile" (4). In this, she is referring to the yearly flooding of the Nile River which rose over its banks to deposit nutrient-rich soil on the land, allowing for the cultivation of crops. Without the inundation, Egyptian culture could not have taken hold in the Nile River Valley and their civilization would never have been established. So important was the Nile flood that scholars believe many, if not most, of the best known Egyptian myths are linked to, or directly inspired by, this event. The story of the death and resurrection of the god Osiris, for example, is thought to have initially been an allegory for the life-giving inundation of the Nile, and numerous gods throughout Egypt's history are directly or indirectly linked to the river's flood.

So fertile were the fields of Egypt that, in a good season, they produced enough food to feed every person in the country abundantly for a year and still have surplus, which was stored in state-owned granaries and used in trade or saved for leaner times. A bad growing season was always the result of a shallow inundation by the Nile, no matter the amount of rainfall or what other factors came into play.

Tools & Practices

The yearly inundation was the most important aspect of Egyptian agriculture, but the people obviously still needed to work the land. Fields had to be plowed and seed sown and water moved to different areas, which led to the invention of the ox-drawn plow and improvements in irrigation. The ox-drawn plow was designed in two gauges: heavy and light. The heavy plow went first and cut the furrows while the lighter plow came behind turning up the earth. Once the field was plowed, then workers with hoes broke up the clumps of soil and sowed the rows with seed. These hoes were made of wood and were short-handled (most likely because wood was scarce in Egypt and so wooden products were expensive) and so to work with them was extremely labor-intensive. A farmer could expect to spend most of a day literally bent over the hoe.

Once the ground was broken and the clods dispersed, seed was carried to the field in baskets and workers filled smaller baskets or sacks from these larger containers. The most common means of sowing the earth was to carry a basket in one arm while flinging the seed with the other hand.

Some farmers were able to afford the luxury of a large basket one attached to the chest by hemp straps which enabled one to use two hands in sowing. To press the seed into the furrows, livestock was driven across the field and the furrows were then closed by workers with hoes. All of this work would have been for nothing, however, if the seeds were denied sufficient water and so regular irrigation of the land was extremely important.

Continue reading...

[angel-with-paper-wings]

God’s Punishment

This is a fanfic piece for Day 4 of DGE POTO 2024, the Luciana-themed week hosted by @lapsusophobia!

Summary: Luciana gets her first period. The two men living in the house react in opposite ways.

Rating/Warnings: rated T, descriptions of menstruation, blood, references to Christianity/Catholicism, period-typical misogyny, body shame, implied transmasc!Erik (if you squint)

When Luciana awoke that sweaty summer morning, she knew something was wrong. Her legs shifted beneath the sheets, and she paused when she felt a strange dampness between her thighs. A deluge of shame swept into her mind all at once; had she really wet the bed? At thirteen years old, she felt sure she would have grown out of such a habit by now.

She quickly jumped out of bed and ran her hands over the sheets, but to her surprise, they were dry. Her face contorted into a confused frown as she pulled the chamber pot out from under her bed. With shaking hands, she gathered up the skirt of her nightgown and glanced down, unprepared for the dreadful sight that awaited her.

Blood. She had never seen so much blood. It trickled in a dark red streak down the inside of her thigh. Her wide eyes watched it slowly trail the length of her leg, over the bone of her ankle, oozing into a thick scarlet droplet onto the smooth wooden floor.

A scream of horror finally escaped her throat. She seemed rooted to the spot, afraid to touch it or spread the mess any further. After a moment, she heard the low rumble of her father’s footsteps stomping towards her door like thunder. Giovanni burst in, half-dressed and eyes blazing. “What in Christ’s name are you screaming about?”

Luciana turned around and stared at him in wordless fear. Her palms pressed the skirt flat against her thighs, failing to hide the growing splotch of red staining the pale fabric of her nightgown.

She watched her father’s eyes narrow in recognition, his lips grimacing in disgust. “Ah…it’s just that.”

“What?” she whispered, breathless with panic. “Father, what’s happening to me? You knew this would happen?”

“Of course I knew this would happen, child. It has happened to all of you…all four of you…”

The disdain in his voice when he spoke of her and her sisters was all too familiar. “What is it?” she squeaked.

His fist clenched at his side and he bit his lip, clearly struggling to explain. “It’s God’s punishment. For Eve’s original sin, women bleed every month and suffer during childbirth.”

His words made Luciana shudder. “Every month?”

Giovanni gave an exasperated sigh and shook his head. He waved his hand as he turned to leave her bedroom. “Clean yourself up. Do not soil any more of your clothing, do you hear me?”

After he moved from her doorway, Luciana continued to stand in shock for several moments. His words sunk in like knives in her flesh. Every month…this would happen every month. Three times each season, she would wake up to a river of blood flowing from her like the Nile in a plagued Egypt. It sounded like a nightmare—a nightmare made real.

Eventually, her shaky legs carried her to the washroom. She poured water into the basin and dipped a cloth into it, before slowly beginning to wipe up the trail of sticky red from her leg. After this task was done, she paused for a moment and considered what else to do. Frustrated tears stung in her eyes as she attempted to staunch the flow of blood, but every time she tried a new tiny splotch would appear on the cloth.

How could no one have told her about this? Did everyone know this was coming except for her? She figured her sisters must have suffered the same thing, and her mother too, though she could not be sure. She knew her father had the answer, but she couldn’t ask him. He hated it when she spoke of her mother, and Luciana hated thinking about her. To think that she was somehow similar to that woman, even in this strange bodily way, filled her with shame.

Shame. The poison pulsed through her body and turned her stomach. Throughout her life, she had always felt ashamed of herself in some way, but now this dark red stain made it visible to everyone else. She had to hide it—that’s the only way she could convince herself she was not feeling it. No one must see this curse on her body.

Especially not him.

Just the thought of him, that boy, seeing her covered in her own blood made her quiver in mortification. She quickly removed her soiled nightgown and placed it in the bathtub. She went to her small wardrobe and grabbed a pair of drawers and a gown for the day and carried them back into the washroom. By this time, blood was seeping through the cloth she had been using to clean herself, so she chucked it into the bathtub with a harsh yell. She found a new cloth and positioned it carefully within her drawers, before pulling on the rest of the clothes. Examining herself in the mirror, she adjusted her skirts one more time before walking stiffly down the stairs.

A sigh of relief left her chest when she saw that the boy was not in the kitchen; she figured he was in the basement working on his bizarre inventions, or perhaps already hard at work on her father’s buildsite. Happy to not have him as a distraction, she quickly got to work preparing breakfast as usual. The water for the coffee was halfway boiled and she was just cutting the bread for toast, when she felt a stabbing pain in her belly. She grimaced and dropped the knife, moving her hand to her abdomen. “Ow!” she yelped.

After a few seconds, the pain passed and she blinked away the tears at the edges of her eyes. She looked down at her own belly in offended shock. So not only was there blood, but there was pain, too? Why was she being punished for something Eve did? She wasn’t there in Eden, she didn’t eat that stupid apple!

These thoughts bounced around in her head, until a sharp whistling broke through. She whipped her head to the screaming kettle sitting on the stove, and she quickly removed it from the heat. She set the coffee to infuse, when she heard a soft shuffle behind her. She turned around, and almost spilled the coffee in surprise.

The boy loomed over her like the void of night. He stood a full meter away from her, but it still somehow felt too close. Luciana placed a hand over her chest and let out a frazzled sigh. “You could at least warn me,” she groaned.

His golden eyes flickered like nervous candles within the black cloth mask. After a moment, they glanced away from her and toward the countertop beside her. She followed his gaze, and saw the plate of toast and fruit she had already prepared. Understanding his wordless request, she picked it up and held it out to him.

His long bony fingers grasped the plate. She was about to turn around, when she heard a soft mumble: “Thank you.”

Even that tiny phrase, said in his voice, sent a chill up her spine. It wasn’t a bad or scary kind of chill, it was somehow…warm? She looked all the way up his gangly form to his amber eyes again. “You’re welcome.”

The boy stared at her a second longer, not blinking and not moving. Suddenly, she saw his eyes glance down to her lower belly, where she had just felt that sting of pain. Her face burned, and she folded her hands in front of her to cover the spot at the top of her skirts. At this, he finally looked away and trotted out the door without another sound.

She felt her heart racing in the back of her throat. Oh god, had he heard her exclamation of pain? Did he think something was wrong with her? He better not tell her father, or else he may send for a doctor and give her all kinds of nasty medicines or cut her open and rip out little bits of her.

To prevent the panic from seeping in, Luciana inhaled deeply and went back to preparing breakfast for her father. She set the finished plate and coffee on the table, then started on the dough for a fresh loaf of bread to go with lunch. As she worked, she could not stop her thoughts from wandering back to the skinny young shadow that had just vanished from the kitchen.

She didn’t know what to make of that strange boy…that Erik. From the first moment she met him, she knew he was different, everyone knew he was different. He always looked ill, with his pasty skin and sunken eyes. His arms were so thin that from a distance she mistook them for raw bone, and his fingers seemed as fragile as flower stems. And yet, she had seen those arms lift whole loads of bricks without struggle and those fingers carve shapes out of solid marble for hours on end. No wonder Father loves him, she thought bitterly.

He was amazing, yet he remained an enigma to everyone, even Giovanni. That mask seemed to be molded to his face, immobile as the marble he occasionally carved into columns and balustrades. Besides the sight of his wiry forearms when he rolled up his sleeves, he did not allow even the smallest glimpse at the body beneath his clothes, but that only seemed to encourage her curiosity. Often, she wondered what it would be like if he lifted his shirt, and she could glimpse his insides twisting around or his heart beating between the valleys of his ribs. Perhaps he really was a skeleton, and those clothes were the only things keeping all his bones together.

But he never took off his shirt…that was another thing that made him different from all the other men that worked on her father’s buildsite. Even on the hottest days, when the other men’s bare backs gleaned with sweat in the burning sun, his body remained as covered as his face.

But his voice. She had never heard him say more than two words at one time—mostly his simple “si, Signor” to her father—but even these filled up her soul like a good meal. Even in her dreams she could not escape that voice. She used to follow him around for hours, pestering him with questions about his work in the hope of hearing the smallest word, the slightest sound. He could make a sigh of annoyance sound beautiful. But he hardly ever responded with anything more than silence, or a shake or nod of his head if she was lucky. But she couldn’t even enjoy these small victories, before her father was yelling at her to leave the boy to his work.

Was it so wrong to be curious? To her father, yes. All she could do was hope that Erik did not think as lowly of her inquisitiveness as Giovanni did.

When she was done cleaning the kitchen and preparing the ingredients for lunch, Luciana wiped her hands on her apron before hanging it up. She supposed she should start on the laundry now, and that was when she remembered the bloody cloth and nightgown she had thrown into her bathtub. She groaned in frustration as she trudged up the stairs; how was she ever going to get those stains out?

She pushed open the door to her bedroom, and suddenly she stopped in her tracks. Sitting at the foot of her bed was a bucket, a bar of soap, and a towel. She was certain those things had not been there when she left her room not an hour earlier.

Luciana glanced behind her shoulder at the empty hallway, before stepping into her room and closing the door. She walked across the room and eyed the objects, and she noticed that there were a few more things inside the bucket. Kneeling down, she reached in and examined the strange array of items: several identical strips of clean cloth, a few bundles of herbs tied with string, a small jar containing a light-colored powder, and a few recipes written in a sloppy, hurried hand. Upon closer inspection, these recipes seemed to be for teas and tinctures to specifically help with pain. 

If this was a trick meant to puzzle her, it was certainly working. Where did all of this come from? She had just recently grown out of the concept of fairies sneaking into mortals’ houses and leaving them gifts, but she could feel her mind reverting back to that childish fantasy. She supposed she could wonder about such things while she got started on the laundry; she wouldn’t let those damn bloodstains set.

She picked up the bucket and towel and carried them with her into the washroom. Setting them down on the floor, she then retrieved the soap and did a quick double take. Attached to the bar of soap was another small note, written in the same messy scrawl as the recipes:

Cold water works best.

Luciana stared down at the odd message for only a moment, before ripping it off of the soap. She filled the bucket with water and dunked in the soap before adding her nightgown and the cloth. She swirled them around for a moment before reaching inside the water and beginning to fiercely scrub at the bloodstains.

So this was what womanhood was…

[dailydemonspotlight]

Nyami Nyami - Day 82

Race: Dragon

Alignment: Light-Chaos

July 30th, 2024

A lot of religions put great importance on rivers. This is for hopefully obvious reasons, especially if you've taken an 8th grade history class, as sources of water, and especially rivers, are where many civilizations sprout- water is an incredibly important part of life, and rivers give way to several things, whether it be watering for crops or trade routes to access the rest of the world. However, none put as much importance on rivers as several African religions- whether it be the centerpiece of Egyptian mythology being the Nile, to a major deity of the Yoruba people being the river orisha Oshun, or even today's Demon of the Day, an incredibly important god to the Tonga people- the god of the river Zambezi, Nyami Nyami.

Alternatively spelt Nyaminyami, a corruption/pet name of the original 'Nyama yamaninga ninga,' this snake has some big shoes to fill, being one of the central gods of its religion, and one with iconography everywhere. As a deity representing the fourth largest river in all of Africa, and one that is incredibly important to the Tonga people, a people-group who arrived and settled around it at roughly 300 CE, Nyami Nyami is a big deal. Commonly depicted as a large snake or sea serpent whose length is beyond estimation, this god provides sustenance and survival to the Tonga people, being in control of the river it presides over, Zambezi. As the snake swims by, the river would stain red in his wake, though this wasn't a bad omen- no, it was far from it.

In times of struggle, the serpent would rise from its home deep under the waves and allow its people to cut from its skin to feast, giving way to the meaning of its name- 'pieces of meat-' before heading back under into the watery depths. As the controller of the eb an flow of the river, he would ensure that the crops were watered and that the people he watched over were thriving, and he did this for hundreds of years... until when the white man arrived. He went into hiding, though still controlled the river, and assisted from afar until 1955, when a dam was beginning to be planned overlooking the river. As the river had began to rise and his home was trapped under the waves, he was already getting annoyed, but the dam was the final straw.

After all, during the time of its construction, as legends go, his wife had visited downstream, and was now trapped behind it. This, alongside everything else- him being forced into hiding, and his home's submersal- finally inspired his wrath. The construction of the dam was famously hit by disaster after disaster, to the point many people say it may be cursed- even as recent as 2023, a wall collapsed inside. During the planning phase in 1950, a massive hurricane hit the river, causing it to swell by 7 meters, and once it was over, the entire flood plain was covered in animal carcasses. The survey team sent to check out the mess were then wiped out utterly by a sudden landslide. This unprecedented event was even stranger than just that, though- the cyclone that had whipped the river so high was from the Indian ocean, far beyond the landlocked African river. However, this was only the beginning of Nyami Nyami's wrath, showing how powerful the serpent was in his inconsolable rage of humanity's interference in both his and his people's lives.

The dam's construction, while seen as unilaterally good by most involved in planning, involved the displacement of the Tonga people away from the basin of the river so the dam could function- the place they had lived for years, raised so many families within, had been stripped away for the purpose of building a massive source of energy for colonizers. This, rightfully so, was seen by many of the Tonga people as unjust, and as the dam had begun construction, they called upon Nyami Nyami again.

Later on in 1955, on Christmas Eve, yet another unprecedented event struck the country- a massive flash flood that hadn't happened before or since completely broke the foundations being built, wiping out several people and halting progress for days. However, when construction persisted, yet another flood struck in 1956, and finally, in 1958, one last one hit the river, a massive rainstorm turned flash flood that was purported to only happen once every 10,000 years! The flood caused several explosions to ring out throughout the dam, leading to yet more lives being lost. Eventually, though, the dam was finished. Nyami Nyami's wrath had failed, ultimately, but the damages were many, as over 80 people had lost their lives. Hence, this is why you never piss off a river deity.

Now, in terms of SMT representation, it's an incredibly faithful design to the many Nyami Nyami statues erected around the river, a coiled snake with a fish's head. While I somewhat wish we got to see the great serpent depicted in the myths surrounding Nyami Nyami, this is a great pick for his design in general, as it's literally just a blue-tinted version of the exact statues one may see depicting this serpent. Overall, Nyami Nyami is an excellent design for a river god who tried to protect a displaced tribe of people during their darkest hour, and though he failed, we really do have to acknowledge how wild it was that several once-in-a-lifetime events hit the dam in such short succession. Nyami Nyami's wrath must not go understated.

[forestenjoyer]

(WIP) Rivers of Ehrð

So this has been in the works for several months, and will be likely for several more, but i have been working on a global map showing the river networks of my fictional version of Earth. They are broadly the same as the real world but due to differences in rainfall and climate there are differences. (open for zoomed in images)

There are no endorheic basins, meaning all water eventually reaches the ocean, and global mean sea level is about 20 metres lower.

Anyway, I have just finished mapping and tracing out the basins for every river which is over 1000km long in the real world, as well as some others in areas that are too arid in real life to be true rivers.

Regional Maps

For convenience of reading and because I haven't got names for everything yet, I will use the real life region names. If a river has it's own name in my world I will also use that.

I will list the rivers in a clockwise direction along coastlines, usually starting from the edge of the map. rivers on islands will go after the rest. Green names mean that i have my own name for the river in the fictional world.

Northern North America

Fraser

Kuskokwim

Yukon

Mackenzie

Rest of North America

Misinipi (Churchill)

Nelson

St Lawrence

Mississippi

Brazos

Colorado (Texas)

Grande

Santiago

Colorado (The one with the Grand Canyon)

Columbia

South America

Magdalena

Orinoco

Essequibo

Amaru (Amazon)

São Francisco

Plait/Plate (la Plata)

Europe

Kızıl

Dona (Don)

Dnieper

Dniester

Danube

Tagus

Loire

Rhine

Elbe

Blac/Black (river draining what would be the Baltic Sea)

Northern Dvina

Pexohra (Pechora)

I'm not listing the ones on the island next to Britain, which is named Fairixant

North Africa

Niger

Volta

Gambia

Senegal

Tamanrasset

Hamra (Saguia el-Hamra)

Draa

Chott el Djerid

Sahabi

Nile

Southern and Central Africa

Jubba

Zambezi

Limpopo

Orange

Congo

Ogooué

India and Middle East

Patma (Ganges-Brahmaputra)

Godavari

Krishna

Narmada

Indus

Helmand

Minab

Shatt al-Arab (Arab)

Matti

East and Southeast Asia

Songhua

Huwan (Huang He/Yellow)

Yangtze

Pehrl (Pearl)

Red/Hong

Mekong

Lapaina (Irriwaddy/Salween)

Western Siberia

Corta (Ob)

Onesi (Yenisei)

Eastern Siberia

Khatanga

Lena

Suluma (Kolyma)

Anian (Anadyr)

Amur

Oceania and Borneo

Mamberamo

Sepik

Fly

Murray

Kati Thanda

Flinders

Kapuas

Barito

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

How big can a desert oasis be? I know the Nile river delta is massive but how much bigger can it get? I'd like to have one half the area of Egypt. What also needs to be done about the rivers that flow into them?

Tex: An oasis has a geological underpinning that is man-made in its longevity (Wikipedia), so I suppose they’re only as large as they need to be. Some factors in that include amount of irrigation, size of the underlying water table, how long you can travel from one oasis to another before running out of water, and mode of transportation that typically dictates rate of travel. By definition, an oasis resides in a desert. If something is large enough to cover, as you say, half of Egypt, then the resulting changes in the local environment might create a temperate climate rather than an arid one. Rivers are part and parcel with sedimentary or metamorphic rocks because of its more porous nature than igneous rock, and are the surface-visible part of water movement that also works underground through things like water tables/aquifers.

Licorice: Apparently the largest oasis in our world is 33 square miles. It has four cities and 22 villages. It's in Saudi Arabia and it's called Al-Ahsa. Al-Ahsa_Oasis (Wiki)

I think it might all be a question of scale. An oasis half the size of Egypt wouldn’t be an oasis in the Sahara desert, but if your desert took up half your planet, then that huge oasis might be considered an oasis.

Utuabzu: The exact definition of oasis gets a little fuzzy, since it’s not super clear at what point your lake becomes an inland sea. But an oasis is typically a body of water formed by upwelling groundwater - generally from an artesian basin of some kind - in an otherwise arid environment. They can range in size from a glorified puddle to the one Licorice mentioned, and they’re not necessarily permanent features on the landscape. Plenty of oases are seasonal, only present when the groundwater has risen due to rains elsewhere and vanishing again once the water table drops.

You mentioned the Nile Delta, which is not an oasis. I suspect you may have meant the Fayum, which is a body of water formed by a branch of the Nile entering an endorheic basin - a watershed that cannot empty to the sea because it is too high on all sides - and has been and remains a very agriculturally productive region of Egypt. Endorheic basins can also produce what are called inland deltas, where a river fans out into a large wetland at the bottom of the basin, as it is unable to reach the sea and does not have high enough water flow to flood the basin and create a lake or inland sea. Examples of this include the Okavango Delta in Botswana and the Sistan Delta in Iran and Afghanistan. More commonly endorheic basins have lakes (often salt lakes) or saltpans at their lowest points, and small or intermittent to non-existent waterways.

If we take what you want to be a region approximately the size of Egypt with a river that ends in a delta but does not flow into the sea, surrounded by desert, then that is possible. The Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers flow through the Central Asian deserts and steppe to empty into the Aral Sea, which is an endorheic basin that once housed an enormous freshwater lake.* The region between these two rivers - called Transoxiana in classical sources - has been home to a chain of vibrant, prosperous civilisations and a vast diversity of peoples and cultures. So if you want to have a big river run through a desert and empty either into a lake or an inland delta, so long as you know where the water is coming from - the Syr Darya and Amu Darya are fed by snowmelt from the Hindu Kush and Tian Shan mountains, while the White Nile, which is the source of the Nile floods, rises in the Ethiopian Highlands and is fed by the wet season rains there - then there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t. Far stranger things exist in real life.

*Soviet hydroengineering has resulted in the Aral Sea all but drying up, causing immense ecological damage to Central Asia.

[mariacallous]

As France grapples with soaring temperatures and ever more ruinous droughts, a full-blown water war is unfolding in the country, with heavy clashes, injuries, and arrests.

Tensions are running high over the use of giant artificial reservoirs for irrigation, which some farmers rely on to cope with water scarcity but which critics say are making the problem worse, accelerating the depletion of limited groundwater resources for the benefit of only a handful of big producers.

It’s one of many conflicts over water access breaking out with growing frequency all over the world, as climate change dries soils, increases temperatures and makes crops thirstier, and reduces the annual snowpacks that traditionally replenished freshwater flows. Water diversion in China is stoking regional ire. In Central Asia, access to scarce water resources is exacerbating cross-border tensions. Climate change and upstream dams, as well as poor water management, are drying out Iraq and Iran. Egypt and Ethiopia have been at odds for years over an upstream Nile River dam that threatens downstream countries. Western U.S. states are bickering over the dwindling resources of the once-mighty Colorado River, while in Germany and Chile, contentious access to water is fueling domestic strife.

“Water is a common good. No one can claim it as their own,” said Julien Le Guet, a spokesperson for Bassines Non Merci (Basins No Thanks), an activist group. This month, Le Guet and several other defendants went on trial over various unauthorized demonstrations against the construction of a new mega-reservoir in Sainte-Soline, in western France.

A rally held in March, in particular, turned into a violent confrontation with the police that left 47 officers and 200 demonstrators wounded. Some local farmers also denounced damage to their crops and the pipes linking their fields to the new basin. Fresh protests took place at another construction site nearby and in Paris over the last few weeks, with more actions planned in the near future.

Estimates vary between 100 and several hundred retention basins in France, giant plastic-lined craters spanning 20 acres on average that are filled by pumping groundwater in winter for use during the scalding summer months. And their number, whatever it is, is growing. The project in the Deux-Sèvres region (which includes Sainte-Soline), led by a private cooperative of local farmers, entails the construction of 16 new reservoirs that would store more than 6 million cubic meters of water—the equivalent of 1,600 Olympic swimming pools. Another 30 reservoirs are due to be built in the nearby Vienne region.

Supporters say that as the weather gets hotter and drier—2023 had the hottest summer on record globally—the basins are an indispensable life insurance for farmers and a way to reduce the pressure on water resources when they are at their lowest. France has recently been experiencing its worst droughts ever; in July, more than two-thirds of its natural groundwater reserves were below normal levels.

“Irrigating without basins means to continue pumping groundwater, even when there’s less of it,” said Laurent Devaux of Coordination Rurale, a farmers’ union.

The problem, critics say, is that the reservoirs are siphoning precious groundwater for the benefit of a small minority. Just 7 percent of French farmland is equipped with irrigation canals, and only some of the irrigated farms around the reservoirs are actually connected to them. The basin in Sainte-Soline will be directly linked to barely 12 farms out of a total of 185 in the area. According to Le Guet, of all the irrigated farms in the region concerned by the Deux-Sèvres project, the ones that will be connected to the new basins use twice as much water on average as the others.

“This is not just a conflict between certain farmers and environmentalist groups,” said Laurence Marandola, a spokesperson for the Confédération Paysanne farmers’ union, which opposes the basins. “All of us farmers need water,” she said.

And there is less and less of it. Due to the combined effects of global warming and over-pumping, Europe’s groundwater resources have been steadily declining in recent decades, with a yearly loss of some 84 gigatons of water (roughly the equivalent of Lake Ontario) since the turn of the century—just like what’s happening elsewhere in the world, from much of the U.S. to the Middle East.

Critics, including conservationists, small farmers, and scientists, slam the reservoirs as a particularly wasteful method of storing water. Keeping it out in the open, rather than underground, means that some of it evaporates and the remaining part heats up, filling with toxic bacteria, said Christian Amblard, an honorary research director at France’s National Center for Scientific Research. “You’ve got, at the same time, a loss of quantity and quality. It makes no sense,” he said.

Finally, these reservoirs are accused of perpetuating what critics call an unsustainable agricultural model that consumes too much water and accelerates global warming. More than 60 percent of Europe’s arable land is used to feed livestock—which, globally, is responsible for over 30 percent of the world’s emissions of methane—a powerful greenhouse gas. The crops that are grown for animal feed include corn, which occupies one-third of all irrigated land in France and demands lots of water in the summer—hence the need for solutions such as the reservoirs.

“The mega-basins are delaying a transition to a responsible, resilient, and water-efficient agriculture,” Amblard said.

That transition would entail, among other things, working to make soils more capable of retaining water and pivoting away from meat and dairy production, according to experts. With up to 15 billion euros in public aid doled out to the French agriculture sector every year, the necessary financial resources shouldn’t be hard to find, Amblard said. “The agricultural sector is one of the few where the ecological transition can be carried out without leaving anyone by the wayside,” he said.

So far, though, successive French governments have shown little appetite for that, handsomely subsidizing the reservoirs instead—which current French Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau praised as “virtuous.” Taxpayers will foot 70 percent of the 76-million-euro bill for the ones planned in the Deux-Sèvres. If farmers have an outsized political and financial influence in the European Union as a whole, in France they are a political power unto themselves.

French authorities have also been cracking down hard on the anti-basins movement. Police have come under heavy criticism for their handling of the Sainte-Soline protest, with the Human Rights League, a French nongovernmental organization, denouncing the indiscriminate firing of rubber bullets and the hindering of first-aid workers by the security forces in a bid to “prevent access to the basin’s site, whatever the human cost.”

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has described some of those taking part in the protests as “eco-terrorists” and has taken steps to dissolve Les Soulèvements de la Terre (Earth’s Uprisings), a vocal, and sometimes violent, environmental group.

“We are increasingly the target of legal actions, investigations, and surveillance,” Le Guet said. “Over the last year, court summons have been raining down,” he said, adding that the movement will continue to hamper new basin construction, nonetheless.

The debate looming in France is a familiar one from the American West to the headwaters of the Nile. The basins “are being politicized and isolated from their context, with the farmers who back them being unfairly designated as villains,” Devaux said.

But “there simply isn’t enough water in the underground reserves to carry on like this, extracting these amounts of water for agriculture,” Marandola said. “And what is done with the water that’s taken should be decided in a democratic way, for every single drop.”

[fishfolkart]

African Knifefish - is a member of the Featherback and Knifefishes family. It is widely distributed in tropical Africa, in the Nile, Chad, Niger, Ogowe and Congo basins. Also present in coastal rivers in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Togo, Benin and Cameroon. It prefers quiet waters with vegetation. It can produce barking sounds and it comes to the surface from time to time to swallow air. Feeds at dusk and during the night on worms, crustaceans, insects and snails. It can reach a maximum length of 30 cm (about 12 inches). https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/152957627

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil’s Cerrado, the second largest biome after the Amazon, could lose almost 34% of its water by 2050

The Cerrado, a vast tropical savanna in Brazil and the country’s second largest biome after the Amazon rainforest, could lose 33.9% of its river flows by 2050, if the pace of agricultural exploitation remains at current levels. This volume of water corresponds to the flow of eight Nile rivers in Egypt.

The Cerrado occupies 22% of the Brazilian territory, in the center-east region, including the capital Brasília. The alert was made by Instituto Cerrados (Cerrados Institute), an NGO that works to protect the environment. They analyzed 81 river basins in the region, between 1985 and 2022, and discovered that there was a decrease in flow by 88% due to the growth of agriculture.

The study indicates that the cultivation of soybeans, corn and cotton, as well as livestock, have influenced the water cycle of the Cerrado. Also, according to the study, changes in land use resulting from deforestation caused a reduction in water flow in 56% of cases. The other 44% is associated with climate change.

“Deforestation for large-scale agriculture, which requires intense irrigation, changes the hydrological cycle in a way that reduces the flow of rivers,” said the founder and director of Cerrados Institute, Yuri Botelho Salmona.

Continue reading.

[enchanted-moura]

Het Heru

[mapsontheweb]

The countries of the Nile river basin and its sources.

by maphub_