Blue Nile basin has a range altitude between 350 m in Khartoum area to 4250 a.m.s.l. in Ethiopia highlands (Dessie, 2010). Below is the figure of Blue Nile Basin topography:
In geology term, the Blue Nile basin is located in Northwestern Ethiopian Plateau. On the east side, it is bounded by Main Ethiopian Rift along to the South East. On the north side, it is bounded by Axum-Adigrat lineament and by Ambo lineament on the south side. They are cities that located in Amhara Region, Ethiopia. The basin contains Early–Late Oligocene and Quaternary volcanic rocks overlying around 1400m thick section of Mesozoic sedimentary rocks overlying Neoproterozoic basement rocks. Tectonic elements within Blue Nile basin locations are shown in Figure 2.
Blue…show more content… Cambisol, according to FAO World Reference Base for Soil Resources, is a soil with a beginning of soil formation. Cambisols are developed in medium and fine-textured materials derived from a wide range of rocks, mostly in alluvial, colluvial and aeolian deposits (FAO, 2001). Cambisols are good for agricultural purposes and have been intensively used.
From the following figure we can see that Ethiopia is mostly covered by grass savanna. In some areas there are also subtropical rainforests, especially in South-West Ethiopia. Meanwhile, there are some mixtures of biomes in Sudan. Arid dessert, xeric shrubland, semiarid dessert, grass savanna and subtropical dry forest are the type of biomes in Sudan. Among the ones mentioned above, the blue nile basin are mostly surrounded by grass savanna.
The main ecosystems in Ethiopia are categorized into 10 different ecosystems. There are Afroalpine and Subafroalpine Ecosystem, Montane Grassland Ecosystem, Dry Evergreen Mountain Forest and Evergreen Scrub Ecosystem, Montane Moist Forest Ecosystem, Acacia-Commiphora Woodland Ecosystem, Combretum-Terminalia Ecosystem, Lowland Tropical Forest Ecosystem, Desert amd Semi-desert Ecosystem, Wetland Ecosystem and Aquatic…show more content… Desert and Semi-desert ecosystems are located in the lowland region of the country. This ecosystem is consisted of deciduous shrubs which are dominated by Acacia sp and interspersed with less frequent evergreen shrubs and succulents. This ecosystem also consists of many kinds of grass vegetation. People in this area live with pastoral and agro-pastoral lifestyle (IBC, 2007). Being said so, large scale irrigated agriculture is becoming more important in some areas of the ecosystem (IBC,