Wadi Howar

Wadi Howar (Wadi Howa) is a wadi in Sudan and Chad. It travels approximately 400 kilometres in a northeasterly direction from the Ouaddaï highlands in Chad across the Sudanese state of North Darfur, before losing itself in the Libyan Desert. Towards its western end it forms a part of the international boundary between Sudan and Chad, separating the Sudanese state of West Darfur and the Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Region of Chad.

The wadi is the remnant of the ancient Yellow Nile, a tributary of the Nile during the Neolithic Subpluvial. It was one of the largest rivers, lasting until 1500 BC, when the Sahara Desert grew to its present point.[1] The Yellow Nile met the Nile near the southern point of the Great Bend. The present extremely arid western part of Upper Nubia (Northern Sudan) was temporarily linked to the Nile by way of a hitherto unknown 400 kilometer long tributary. From about 9500 to 4500 years ago, the lower part of Wadi Howar flowed through an environment characterized by numerous groundwater outlets and freshwater lakes. Savanna fauna and cattle-herders occupied this region, which today receives at most 25 millimeters of rainfall per year. At that period, the southern edge of the eastern Sahara was 500 kilometers further north than today and groundwater resources were recharged for the last time.

References

  1. ↑ Keding, B (2000). "New data on the Holocene occupation of the Wadi Howar region (Eastern Sahara/Sudan)." Studies in African Archaeology 7, 89–104.

Coordinates: 18°03′26″N 30°56′55″E / 18.05722°N 30.94861°E / 18.05722; 30.94861

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