African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 446: Chapter 124: Small Governance Strong Project

It turns out that work is never-ending. After a few days of simple rest, the ”laborers” of the No. 1 Canal were relocated to East Africa to manage the Little Rhine River.

The management of the Little Rhine River had to be discussed starting from two months ago.

”Your Majesty, there have been fifteen flooding incidents along the Little Rhine River this year, submerging over thirteen thousand acres of fertile farmland. Because our villages are generally built at a distance from the riverbank, the damage was not too severe. However, river water still overflowed into three villages during the light rainy season, and these figures are only from the end of last year to March this year.”

Constantine asked, ”From what I know, East African farmlands are carefully selected by highly experienced farmers, and over the past two years, the Central Province has not expanded its planting area. Rainfall isn’t significantly different from usual years. Why are we still experiencing flooding disasters?”

”Your Majesty, we consulted water management experts about this issue. They informed us that the current status of the Little Rhine River is bound to result in such issues.”

”What status?”

”Generally speaking, it’s an issue all rivers worldwide face, which is the effect of the Coriolis force causing river water to shift direction. Our Little Rhine River in East Africa is affected by this force, resulting in a left bank deviation. Over time, it becomes incredibly winding, and since the river moves through winding channels, it’s naturally harder to flow out compared to straight channels. Hence, during heavy rains, the river is prone to erratic flows.”

The Agriculture Minister attempted to explain the Little Rhine River issue using his level of knowledge, fully demonstrating the worrying capability of East Africa’s Agriculture Minister, who possesses only elementary education in state governance.

”Uh, alright! Your point is that our river is quite winding, hence inconvenient for water flow and prone to change course, correct?” Constantine summarized.

”Sort of, sort of.”

Thus, the matter became clear.

The rivers in East Africa are very different from rivers in other parts of the world. Bigger rivers like the Nile, Zambezi, Congo, Limpopo... are still fair to mention, East Africa still holds a bit.

These rivers are ranked among the world’s top, but East Africa’s economy isn’t deeply tied with these rivers. On one hand, the outlets aren’t controlled by East Africa; on the other, even having these river outlets doesn’t have much use for current East Africa.

The Nile is slightly better, having both a huge fertile delta and the excellent port of Alexandria. However, it flows primarily through desert areas, rightly being Egypt’s mother river.

In Egypt and the Sultanate, many waterfalls exist, making the Nile’s navigation value almost negligible for East Africa. If only it could reach the Mediterranean from South Sudan, Ernst wouldn’t mind starting a war over it. The same goes for Egypt; if the Nile didn’t have these waterfall barriers, its territorial extent wouldn’t be limited to extending to North Sudan for millennia.

There’s no need to mention the Congo River; although navigable areas are large, they’re restricted to the Congo Basin’s tropical rainforest region, making it a green desert, only slightly better than a desert. The real issue is the Congo River mouth having waterfalls, rendering it even less valuable than the Nile.

The Zambezi River faces similar problems; only its Mozambique section can reach the sea directly. The Zambezi River is most known for its gorges, rapids, and waterfalls.

The Limpopo River is slightly smaller than the previous rivers but also regarded as one of the world’s larger rivers. It shares similar issues as the Zambezi River.

East Africa also borders another river with Cape Town—the Orange River. The Orange River flows mostly through uninhabited desert and mountainous areas, with scant water.

All in all, there’s not a single significant river left; excluding these renowned large rivers from the former world, East Africa’s current most navigable rivers are the medium and small coastal rivers.

The Little Rhine River is the most typical among them, and small rivers face a severe problem—they’re not wide enough and are extremely winding.

The Little Rhine River can’t even be described as tortuous; nearly every hundred meters there’s a big bend. This characteristic spans almost the entire length of the Little Rhine River, akin to the description of eighteen bends on a mountain road.

(Diagram: The straight-line distance of the river segment in the diagram is approximately ten kilometers)

In fact, the state of the Little Rhine River is the norm for all natural rivers worldwide. However, East African rivers are quite bizarre, never having witnessed the birth of an agricultural civilization for millennia. This led to a lack of water engineering projects in sub-Saharan Africa, making river channel repairs nonexistent.

Meanwhile, most equivalent rivers in Europe and the Far East have been artificially repaired, with at least main stretches being very straight.

If the rivers are not artificially repaired, they might still be relatively straight because rivers can naturally correct their courses. However, these rivers generally have large flows capable of smoothing their courses, making the river width broad and their channels somewhat straight.

For instance, the Yellow River in the Far East, despite less flow, has an average width of over five hundred meters. The Yangtze River’s average width exceeds nine hundred meters, Europe’s Rhine River averages over three hundred meters, and the Danube River—dubbed Europe’s Amazon River—has a midpoint average width exceeding sixteen hundred meters.

Apart from the hundred meters at the river mouth area, most segments of the Little Rhine River are merely around twenty meters, with an average width not exceeding forty meters. Despite the narrow river width, the Little Rhine River’s excessive bends further exacerbate the issue.

This greatly limits the development potential of the Little Rhine River, posing a certain threat to agriculture and residences along its banks. It’s manageable in normal years, but during extreme years with substantial rainfall, East Africa wouldn’t be spared.

Thus, for the situation with the Little Rhine River, Constantine, after discussions with Ernst, the father and son duo decided to take firm measures against it.

This led to the Little Rhine River Management and Enhancement Project, abbreviated as the ”Little Enhancement Project,” covering a full suite of services along its more than one hundred and fifty kilometers.

It includes dredging and widening the river channel, reinforcing river embankments, straightening sections through plains, and fully upgrading the associated agricultural irrigation system along the river.

Upon completion, the Little Rhine River’s width will be elevated to over fifty meters, significantly enhancing its flood management, drainage, and navigation capabilities during the rainy season, ensuring the safety of farmland, villages, and cities along the river, and most importantly, safeguarding the Capital First Town.

Since the Little Rhine River has noticeable flooding seasons, the project primarily takes place during the dry season when river flow is minimal. The difficulty level of the project is relatively moderate, with a considerable project scale.

Aside from the Little Rhine River, rivers like the Lufuma River, the Rufiji River, and the Tana River (Kenyan river) along East African coasts share somewhat similar issues.

Conversely, the Juba River and the Shebelle River have slightly more favorable conditions since both primarily traverse desert regions, creating more desirable channels. However, the economic value of the areas these two rivers flow through is relatively low.

According to Ernst’s vision, it would naturally involve extensive repairs and renovations for these rivers, capitalizing on the currently abundant and affordable ”laborers” to complete these projects once and for all, benefiting East Africa for generations to come.