Chapter 433 Small Strengthening Project
As it turned out, the work was never done. After a few days of simple rest, the "workers" of Canal No. 1 were transferred from East Africa to the Little Rhine to dredge the river channel.
The story of the Little Rhine River channel improvement began two months ago.
"Your Majesty, there have been 15 floods along the Little Rhine this year, submerging more than 13,000 acres of fertile farmland. Since our villages are generally built far from the riverbank, we did not suffer much damage. However, the river still flooded into three villages during the rainy season. And this is only the statistics from the end of last year to March this year."
Constantine asked, "As far as I know, the farmlands in East Africa are all good places carefully selected by experienced farmers. The Central Province has not expanded its planting area in the past two years, and the rainfall is not much different from normal years. How could it still be hit by floods?"
"Your Majesty, we have consulted water conservancy experts on this matter, and the reason they gave is that the condition of the Little Rhine is bound to cause such a problem."
"What's going on?"
"Generally speaking, it's because rivers all over the world have a problem, that is, the river water is affected by the Coriolis force (the Earth's Coriolis force), and then it will deflect. The Little Rhine River in East Africa is affected by this force and deflects to the left bank. Over time, it becomes tortuous. The river water flowing through the tortuous river channel is naturally not as good as the straight river channel, and it is not easy to flow out. So sometimes when it rains heavily, the river water is easy to flow turbulently."
The Minister of Agriculture tried his best to explain the Little Rhine issue using his own level of knowledge, which fully demonstrated that the East African Minister of Agriculture’s primary school education was not good enough for state governance.
"Well, okay! What you mean is that our river is rather winding, so the water doesn't flow smoothly and is prone to changing course!" Constantine concluded.
"Almost. Almost."
This way the matter becomes clear.
The rivers in East Africa are very different from those in other parts of the world. It’s easier to explain the larger rivers, such as the Nile, the Zambezi, the Congo, the Limpopo... East Africa has some of them.
These rivers are ranked among the best in the world, but the economy of East Africa is not closely tied to them. On the one hand, the outlets to the sea are not in the hands of East Africa. On the other hand, even if these rivers have outlets to the sea, they are actually not of much use to East Africa at present.
The Nile River is better, with a vast and fertile delta and an excellent port, Alexandria, but the area it flows through is mainly desert, making it the well-deserved mother river of Egypt.
However, there are many waterfalls in Egypt and Sudan, which makes the shipping value of the Nile River almost dispensable to East Africa. If it were really possible to reach the Mediterranean directly from South Sudan, Ernst would not mind starting a war for this. The same is true for Egypt. If the Nile River did not have these waterfalls blocking it, its territory would not have extended only to North Sudan for thousands of years.
Not to mention the Congo River. Although the navigable area is large, it is limited to the tropical rainforest area of the Congo Basin. This is a green desert, and its value is only slightly better than the desert. The worst thing is that the estuary of the Congo River is a waterfall, which is not as valuable as the Nile River.
The same problem exists with the Zambezi River. Only the section of the river in Mozambique reaches the sea directly. The Zambezi River is most famous for its canyons, rapids and waterfalls.
The Limpopo River is slightly smaller than the previous rivers, but it is also considered a relatively large river in the world, and its problems are the same as those of the Zambezi River.
East Africa also has another river that forms a boundary with Cape Town - the Orange River. The area through which the Orange River passes is basically uninhabited desert and mountains, and the water supply is not sufficient.
In short, none of them is worth mentioning. After excluding these world-famous large rivers in the past life, the most valuable shipping rivers in East Africa at present are the small and medium-sized rivers along the coast of East Africa.
The Little Rhine is one of the most typical ones, and small rivers will encounter a very serious problem, that is, the river channel is not wide enough and is very tortuous.
The Little Rhine River cannot be described as winding, as it encounters a big bay almost every hundred meters or so, and this is almost a characteristic of the entire Little Rhine River. It would be more appropriate to describe it as a mountain road with eighteen bends.
(Figure: The straight-line distance of the river section in the picture is about ten kilometers)
In fact, the state of the Little Rhine is the norm for all natural rivers in the world, but the rivers in East Africa are rather unusual. For thousands of years, no agricultural civilization has been born, which has resulted in almost no water conservancy projects in sub-Saharan Africa, and naturally there is no possibility of repairing river channels.
Rivers of the same level in Europe and the Far East have mostly been artificially repaired, and at least the main sections are very straight.
If it is a river that has not been artificially repaired, it can of course be relatively straight, because the river itself can also straighten its bends. However, this kind of river generally has a large flow, which can achieve the effect of overcoming all obstacles with one force, making the river surface wide and the river channel relatively straight.
For example, the Yellow River in the Far East, which has less water, has an average width of more than 500 meters, the Yangtze River has an average width of more than 900 meters, the Rhine River in Europe has an average width of more than 300 meters, and the Danube River is known as the Amazon River of Europe, with an average width of more than 1,600 meters in the middle section.
Except for the estuary area where the river channel is over 100 meters, most sections of the Little Rhine are only about 20 meters wide, and the average width does not exceed 40 meters. Not only is the river narrow, but the Little Rhine also has too many bends.
This greatly limits the development potential of the Little Rhine, and also poses a certain threat to agriculture and residences along the coast. It is not so bad in normal years, but if it is an extreme year with a surge in precipitation, it will have a huge impact on the entire East Africa.
So in response to the situation of the Little Rhine, Constantine and his son decided to strike hard against the Little Rhine after discussing with Ernst.
This is the Little Rhine River Regulation and Strengthening Project, referred to as the "Little Rhine Strengthening Project", which includes a full range of one-stop services for more than 150 kilometers along the Little Rhine River.
This includes dredging and widening the river channel, reinforcing the river embankment, artificially straightening the entire section of the Little Rhine that flows through the plain area, and comprehensively upgrading the agricultural irrigation system along the line.
After the completion of the project, the surface of the Little Rhine River will be raised to a level of more than 50 meters, greatly improving its flood discharge and navigation capabilities during the rainy season, ensuring the safety of farmland, villages and cities along the river, and most importantly, the capital's first town.
The Little Rhine has a distinct flood season, so the project is mainly carried out during the dry season when the river flow is lowest. The project difficulty is relatively average, but the amount of work is relatively large.
Except for the Little Rhine, East African coastal rivers such as the Ruvuma River, Rufiji River, and Tana River (a river in Kenya) have these problems to a greater or lesser extent.
On the contrary, the conditions of the Juba River and the Shabelle River are slightly better, because these two rivers mainly flow through the desert area, and the river channels are relatively ideal. However, the economic value of the areas through which these two rivers flow is relatively low.
According to Ernst's idea, of course, major repairs should be carried out, and while there are still sufficient cheap "labor" in East Africa, these projects should be completed in one go, benefiting East Africa for generations to come.
(End of this chapter)
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