Some Egyptian fisherman say the Nile’s water is now so toxic, they dare not eat the fish they catch, according to an alarming BBC report by Peter Schwartzstein. Booming populations have dirtied and drained the Nile, while climate change threatens to cut its flow, Schwartzstein writes, as he tracks the Nile from its sources downstream. The problem begins with a reduction in rainfall from the Blue Nile’s source in Ethiopia, which is impacting people’s livelihoods and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is also threatening water supplies to downstream countries Egypt. He says “history suggests that the Nile basin states are unlikely to come to blows over the river any time soon. Transboundary water disputes have a strong record of peaceful resolution … However, Ethiopia’s intense secretiveness over GERD’s ramifications remains a stumbling block, as do the negotiations over how long it will take to fill the dam’s enormous reservoir.” The desert’s encroachment is eating up arable land, Schwartzstein writes and “a lot of this appears to be due to climate change, and it is happening up and down the Nile valley.”

Schwartzstein also points to the impact of urban development along the Nile’s banks and says the quality of the Nile’s water begins to falter where the Blue Nile meets the White Nile in Khartoum. What more, he reports: “The Nile’s final stretch is so poisonous that even out on the open sea, around the river mouth, few species can survive.”