The May Zegzeg is a river of the

Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...

basin. Rising in the mountains of

Dogu’a Tembien Dogu'a Tembien (, "Upper Tembien", sometimes transliterated as Degua Tembien or Dägʿa Tämben) is a districts of Ethiopia, woreda in Tigray Region, Ethiopia. It is named in part after the former province of Tembien Province, Tembien. Nowadays, ...

in northern

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

, it flows southward to empty finally in the

Giba Gilberto Amauri de Godoy Filho (), known as Giba (; born 23 December 1976), is a Brazilian former professional volleyball player who played as an outside hitter. For much of the 2000s, he was widely regarded as one of the best volleyball playe ...

and

Tekezé River The Tekezé River (; , originally meaning "river" in Ge’ez; , also spelled Takkaze; ), is a major river in Ethiopia. For part of its course it forms a section of the westernmost border of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The river is also known as the Seti ...

Characteristics

It is a confined river, locally

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the Channel (geography), channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erosion, erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank (cut bank, cut bank or river cl ...

ing in its narrow alluvial plain, with an average slope gradient of 43 metres per kilometre. With its tributaries May Sho'ate and

May Harena The May Harena is a river of the Nile basin. Rising in the mountains of Dogu’a Tembien in northern Ethiopia, it flows eastward to empty finally in the Giba and Tekezé River. Characteristics The May Harena is a confined ephemeral river wi ...

, the river has cut a gorge. Jointly with adjacent May Be’ati River, this river is the source of Rubaksa River. Confluence MB MZZ

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 and snow. Flash fl ...

). 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 d ...

. The magnitude of floods in this river has however been decreased due to interventions in the catchment. At Habdi Luqmuts and on other steep slopes,

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

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, t ...

s also intercept runoff.

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, including the following lithological units: *

Phonolite Phonolite is an uncommon shallow intrusive or extrusive rock, of intermediate chemical composition between felsic and mafic, with texture ranging from aphanitic (fine-grained) to porphyritic (mixed fine- and coarse-grained). Phonolite is a var ...

plugs * Upper basalt * Interbedded lacustrine deposits * Lower basalt *

Amba Aradam Formation The Amba Aradam Formation is a Cretaceous sandstone formation in Ethiopia. It is up to 200 metres thick, for instance in the Degua Tembien district. As fossils are absent, the age of the Amba Aradam Formation was interpreted based on the age of as ...

Antalo Limestone The Antalo Limestone, also known as the Antalo Sequence, is a geological formation in Ethiopia. It is between 300 and 800 metres thick and comprises fossiliferous limestones and marls that were deposited in a reef. Marine microfossils have shown ...

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

freshwater

tufa Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitation (chemistry), precipitate out of water in ambient temperature, unheated rivers or lakes. hot spring, Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less ...

May Zegzeg Integrated Catchment Management Project

As part of outreach accompanying research in

Dogu'a Tembien Dogu'a Tembien (, "Upper Tembien", sometimes transliterated as Degua Tembien or Dägʿa Tämben) 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 ...

, the May Zegzeg Integrated Catchment Management Project was set up in 2004 in the catchment of the May Zegzeg River by researchers in cooperation with ADCS, a local NGO. The project included the implementation of conservation techniques to increase water infiltration and conserve the soil. The objective was to improve the livelihood of the communities of Harena, Hech'i and Addi Qolqwal as well as to demonstrate and promote global catchment management in the district. The results of the implementation of site-specific conservation techniques aimed at increasing water infiltration and conserving soil were particularly monitored in the headwaters at May Sho'ate: dry masonry stone bunds, check dams in gullies, and the set-aside of degraded rangelands which resulted in

Natural boundary

Over its full course, this river constitutes the border between Mika'el Abiy (at the west) and

Ayninbirkekin Ayninbirkekin is a ''tabia'' or municipality in the Degua Tembien, Dogu'a Tembien district of the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Literal meaning of Ayninbirkekin in Tigrinya is "We will not bend". The ''tabia'' centre is in Halah village, located app ...

municipalities (at the east)

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 12, runs parallel to the river on the eastern bank, from May Sho'ate to Rubaksa In the rainy season, flash floods may occur and it is advised not to follow the river bed.

References

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