African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1226 The World's Largest Artificial Reservoir

In fact, calling Gezira and Juba big cities is a bit of an exaggeration of the economic status of these two regions in East Africa. In the Nile River Basin, Gezira and Juba rank first and second respectively, but looking at the whole of East Africa, the two cities are at most medium-sized cities.

East Africa's efforts to develop the Nile Basin are not strong. Take agriculture for example. Agricultural development in the Nile Basin is not even as good as that in several provinces of the Azande Plateau, and the Azande Plateau itself is one of the more backward regions in East Africa.

On the other hand, the Great Lakes region adjacent to the two places is completely different. Not only does its grain production rank first in East Africa, its population and economy are also at the forefront. The main problem facing the Great Lakes region is the low per capita income, which is closely related to the relative lack of local industry.

In the past, East Africa's investment in the Great Lakes region was concentrated in the agricultural sector, and industrial development naturally lagged behind. This was only a policy factor. Now the proposal of the Great Lakes Economic Belt is to loosen up the industrial development of the Great Lakes region to a certain extent.

As for the negative impact of local industrial development on agriculture, it is minimal and is nothing more than the two aspects of labor and farmland protection. After the free market is liberalized in East Africa, even if the Great Lakes region economy is not developed, the population will still flow into other regions. It is too early for farmland protection in East Africa now.

At present, the total population of East Africa is just over 100 million, and its population density ranks in the middle among the major powers. Moreover, according to Ernst's experience, based on the current level of urbanization in East Africa and factors such as the education coverage rate, East Africa should be wary of the problem of declining fertility rates in a few decades.

However, Ernst is obviously not too worried about this issue. After all, East Africa still has the identity of an immigrant country. In addition, Ernst and the East African government are currently actively seizing colonies overseas and around the mainland. These colonies themselves will play the role of a population incubator in the future.

Moreover, in the short term, the population of East Africa is in the stage of population explosion experienced by early industrialized countries. By the 1930s and 1940s of this century, the population base of East Africa should be quite considerable.

Let's get back to the topic of migration to the reservoir area. This time, the final destination of the villagers of Yabulun Village is the town of Andong Leo in the northwest, which is less than ten kilometers away from Jinga City.

"In front of us is the destination of our journey, the town of Andon Leo. I think you should be familiar with this place. The government has newly planned a piece of land, right in the town of Andon Leo. I heard that it will be built into a new district of Jinga City. This means that you will most likely become citizens of Jinga City in the future." Tarolin said, pointing to the town of Andon Leo where large-scale construction was underway.

I saw that a lot of new houses have started construction in the town of Anton Leo, and judging from the specifications, they should be built according to urban standards.

This is easy to discern. Although housing in rural areas of East Africa has developed well in recent years, the gap with cities is still quite obvious.

The first is the height. In rural East Africa, there are basically few buildings with more than one floor. However, in the town of Anton Leo, most of the houses are three-story, and some are even four-story.

This is a relatively reasonable floor design, because according to official statistics from East Africa, most people usually feel tired only when they reach the fifth floor, and the fourth floor is like a dividing line, and it is just the right number of floors to reach.

Therefore, most of the current urban residential buildings in East Africa are three or four stories high, and there are also taller buildings. After all, after the market is liberalized, housing construction standards must naturally take market factors into consideration. More residential buildings of other numbers of stories are beginning to appear in East Africa.

The resettlement housing for reservoir area immigrants built in the town of Anton Leo is obviously still built according to the old East African standards and was completed by the municipal engineering team of the East African city of Zinga.

At present, there are still a large number of construction teams from state-owned enterprises in East Africa. This is a product of the planned economy era and cannot be replaced in a short period of time.

Soon, under the command of Captain Tarolin and Mayor Makin, the convoy stopped in the town center of Andoleo. After counting and verifying the personnel, they began to arrange housing for the immigrants in the reservoir area.

Led by a town government staff member, everyone soon came to a row of houses that had just been completed.

"At present, the resettlement community has officially been connected to water and electricity. Each household can be allocated a house, including three bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. The community is equipped with trash cans, and all garbage must be placed in designated locations. I think this should be the same in rural areas, so I won’t go into details. Flower beds and green belts..." With the introduction of the town government staff, it can be seen that this place is built completely in accordance with East African city standards, and all basic living facilities are available.

"As for the job problem, since only part of the farmland in your village is in the flooded area, the rest of the land has now been incorporated into Luotian Village under Andong Leo Town. Your jobs will also be transferred to the original state-owned farm in Andong Leo Town. A small number of people will be arranged to work in the urban area of ​​Jinga City. The bus from here to the urban area is already open, so there is no need to worry about transportation problems."

It is obvious that the preliminary work for this resettlement had already been arranged in place long ago, and the development did not begin after the economic development strategy along the lake was proposed.

In fact, as early as the beginning of this century, Ernst had envisioned the construction of the Xingguo Reservoir. The so-called Xingguo Reservoir is the Owen Reservoir in its previous life.

The Owen Reservoir was built on the basis of Lake Victoria. Relying on this advantage, the Owen Reservoir has become the world's largest artificial reservoir. Of course, many people do not regard the Owen Reservoir as a normal artificial reservoir. After all, it is integrated with Lake Victoria.

As Lake Victoria is the world's second largest freshwater lake with a water area of ​​tens of thousands of kilometers, it is indeed a bit self-deceptive to think that building a dam will turn it into an artificial reservoir. After all, the Owen Reservoir Dam is only more than 30 meters high.

Of course, the completion of the Owen Reservoir did raise the water level of Lake Victoria. Excluding the original water volume of Lake Victoria, the newly added capacity can reach more than 200 billion cubic meters.

The Xingguo Dam built in East Africa is a "pirated" version of the Owen Dam in its previous life, and the Xingguo Reservoir is also a "pirated" version of the Owen Reservoir.

What does this extra 200 billion cubic meters of water mean? It is almost equivalent to the storage capacity of five Three Gorges Reservoirs.

However, because the Xingguo Reservoir is built on the basis of a large lake (Lake Victoria), which is originally large in area, the effect after the water volume is distributed is not as significant as that of the Three Gorges Reservoir.

After all, in order to free up space for the Three Gorges, the number of immigrants from the Far East Empire in the previous life reached more than 1.3 million, while the number of immigrants to the reservoir area in East Africa this time was less than 40,000.

Take the relocated Yabulun Village for example. The reason why the entire village was relocated was mainly because the village was too close to a large lake and was located in a low-lying area. This is a relatively typical case, but it is by no means a common case.

For most villages along the shores of the great lakes, at most some land will be flooded, and it may not even be arable land, so the impact can be completely ignored.

This is easy to understand. After the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, the water level upstream was raised by more than 100 meters, while the Xingguo Reservoir only raised the water level of the original Great Lake by nearly three meters. The Great Lakes area is originally similar to a basin terrain, and the Great Lakes is the lowest place in this basin. According to the terrain of the lakeside, this is why the northeastern shore of the Great Lakes area is most vulnerable to the impact.

In fact, it can be seen from the outlet of the Great Lakes region, that is, the Nile River, that the overall terrain of the entire Great Lakes region is relatively low in the northeast, otherwise Lake Victoria would not be one of the sources of the Nile River.

Of course, even so, the construction of the Xingguo Reservoir is definitely a large-scale project in East Africa. After all, it is also the world's largest artificial reservoir. Therefore, as early as 1905, Ernst began to guide the East African water conservancy department to build the Xingguo Reservoir based on the characteristics of Lake Victoria and the Nile River.

During the Third Five-Year Plan, East Africa officially started the preliminary work for the construction of the Xingguo Reservoir, including the construction of new embankments, resettlement sites, hydrological observation stations, and so on.

(End of this chapter)