250 million people rely on the Nile for water that may not exist by 2080

Egypt, for one, gets about 85% of its water from the river—and experts expect the country to face a nationwide freshwater shortage by 2025. A new study published in the journal Earth’s Future on Aug. 28 takes a broad view of the impending Nile water problem: Researchers from Dartmouth College used climate models, population trends, and crop failures to model the next 50 years along the river. The short of it is that the upper Nile basin—including western Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Uganda—is likely to feel an acute squeeze for Nile water, and soon.