Land Degradation in the Dinder and Rahad Basins

Khalid E. A. Hassaballah is a civil engineer with seventeen years of experience covering different aspects of water science and engineering including: Hydroinformatics, catchment hydrology and modelling, hydraulics and river engineering, river morphology, reservoir simulation and optimization, reservoirs bathymetric survey, water resources planning & management and GIS & remote sensing applications. Khalid is currently working as a senior researcher at the Hydraulics Research Center and Director for Training and Capacity Building, Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources, Sudan. In 2010, Eng. Khalid graduated from the MSc Program in Water Science and Engineering, Hydroinformatics specialization, from UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands. Since November 2012, he has been working on his PhD at the same institute (now IHE-Delft). During the course of his PhD, he studied the impacts of land degradation on the Dinder and Rahad hydrology and morphology and linkages to the ecohydrological system of the Dinder National Park, Sudan, using a combination of different methods. Moreover, he attended the courses requirement for the graduate school for Socio-economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment (SENSE).Between 2010 and 2012, he worked for the Eastern Nile Watershed Management Project (ENWMP) as a water resource specialist for the Sudan component. Beside his PhD work, Khalid has also been involved in many projects at national, regional and international levels. In 2013, he was involved in the sedimentation and operation study for upper Atbara dam complex (SOSADC) national project as a hydrological modeler. In 2015, he was involved in the Tekezi Atbara project for IGAD as a catchment modelling advisor and supervisor. Later in 2018, Khalid participated as a team member of the Eastern Nile flood preparedness and early warning system at ENTRO. All together has qualified him to be appointed as National team member for the negotiation on filling and operation of Grand Ethiopian Renascence Dam (GERD) since September 2019, and Director for Training and Capacity Building for the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources-Sudan since February 2020.Eng. Khalid is a full member of the Sudan Engineering Society (SES), Sudan Engineering Council (SEC), National Member of Nile Basin Initiative Decision Support System Network (NBI/DSSN) and representative of the IHE-Delft Alumni Sudan. Khalid is also a visiting lecturer at University of Gezira, Civil Engineering Department, and a regularly invited reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals.

• Introduction, The Study area: Dinder and Rahad river basins, The long-term trends in hydro-climatology of the Dinder and Rahad basins, Analysis of streamflow response to land use and land cover changes using satellite data and hydrological modelling, Modelling the inundation and morphology of the seasonally flooded maya wetlands in the Dinder National Park, The hydrological controls on vegetation dynamics and wildlife in the mayas wetlands of the Dinder National Park, Conclusions and recommendations