May Meqa is a river of the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...

basin. Rising in the mountains of

Dogu’a Tembien Dogu'a Tembien (, "Upper Tembien", sometimes transliterated as Degua Tembien) is a woreda in Tigray Region, Ethiopia. It is named in part after the former province of Tembien. Nowadays, the mountainous district is part of the Southeastern Tigray ...

in northern

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...

, it flows northward to empty finally in Weri’i and

Tekezé River The Tekezé or Täkkäze River ( amh, ተከዜ, ti, ተከዘ; originally meaning "river" in Ge’ez, ), also spelled Takkaze, is a major river of Ethiopia. For part of its course it forms a section of the westernmost border of Ethiopia and Erit ...

Characteristics

It is a confined ephemeral river, locally

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex ban ...

ing in its narrow alluvial plain, with an average slope gradient of 40 metres per kilometre. The river changes names along is course: the upper part, in

Miheno Selam is a ''tabia'' or municipality in the Degua Tembien, Dogu'a Tembien district of the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. The ''tabia'' centre is in Addi Werho village, located approximately 3 km to the northeast of the ''woreda'' town Hagere Sel ...

is called May Tsahli, the middle part in Addi Werho May Meqa, and the lower part, near the mouth May Mugda. The mouth is just 50 metres upstream from

Tinsehe Selam is a ''tabia'' or municipality in the Dogu'a Tembien district of the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. The ''tabia'' centre is in Addi Werho village, located approximately 3 km to the northeast of the ''woreda'' town Hagere Selam. Geogra ...

waterfall

Flash floods and flood buffering

Runoff mostly happens in the form of high runoff discharge events that occur in a very short period (called

flash floods A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and depressions. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm, or by meltwater from ice or snow flowing ov ...

). These are related to the steep topography, often little vegetation cover and intense convective rainfall. The peaks of such flash floods have often a 50 to 100 times larger discharge than the preceding

baseflow Baseflow (also called drought flow, groundwater recession flow, low flow, low-water flow, low-water discharge and sustained or fair-weather runoff) is the portion of the streamflow that is sustained between precipitation events, fed to streams by ...

. The magnitude of floods in this river has however been decreased due to interventions in the catchment. On other steep slopes,

exclosure An exclosure, in an area being used extensively for grazing, is a limited area from which unwanted browsing animals, such as domestic cattle or wildlife such as deer, are excluded by fencing or other means. Environmental protection Most common ...

s have been established; the dense vegetation largely contributes to enhanced infiltration, less flooding and better

. Physical conservation structures such as stone bunds and

check dam A steel check dam A check dam is a small, sometimes temporary, dam constructed across a swale, drainage ditch, or waterway to counteract erosion by reducing water flow velocity. Check dams themselves are not a type of new technology; rather, ...

s also intercept runoff. Efforts have been done to establish biological control measurements (tree plantation) in the river bed.

Boulders and pebbles in the river bed

Boulders and pebbles encountered in the river bed can originate from any location higher up in the catchment. In the uppermost stretches of the river, only rock fragments of the upper lithological units will be present in the river bed, whereas more downstream one may find a more comprehensive mix of all lithologies crossed by the river. From upstream to downstream, the following lithological units occur in the catchment. * Lower basalt * Amba Aradam Formation * Antalo Limestone * Quaternary freshwater

tufa Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitate out of water in unheated rivers or lakes. Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less porous) carbonate deposits, which are known as traverti ...

Trekking along the river

Trekking routes have been established across and along this river. The tracks are not marked on the ground but can be followed using downloaded .GPX files. Trek 23 follows the river over most of its length.

References

{{reflist Rivers of Ethiopia Dogu'a Tembien Tigray Region Nile basin

Characteristics

Flash floods and flood buffering

Boulders and pebbles in the river bed

Trekking along the river

See also

References