Beles River

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title: "Beles River" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["rivers-of-ethiopia", "tributaries-of-the-blue-nile"] description: "River in western Ethiopia" topic_path: "general/rivers-of-ethiopia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beles_River" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary River in western Ethiopia ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox river"]

Field	Value
name	Beles
map	Abbay OSM.png
map_caption	Map showing the Abbay basin, with the Beles River (Centre)
basin_size	14200 km2
length	350 km
source1_location	15 km west of Lake Tana
source1_elevation	2100 m
mouth	Blue Nile
progression	Blue Nile → Nile → Mediterranean Sea
river_system	Nile Basin
country	Ethiopia
::

| name = Beles | map = Abbay OSM.png | map_caption = Map showing the Abbay basin, with the Beles River (Centre) | basin_size = 14200 km2 | length = 350 km | source1_location = 15 km west of Lake Tana | source1_elevation = 2100 m | mouth = Blue Nile | progression = Blue Nile → Nile → Mediterranean Sea | river_system = Nile Basin | country = Ethiopia The Beles (Kusa in Gumuz language) is a river of western Ethiopia. The Beles, a tributary of the Abay River (Blue Nile), originates in Dangur woreda and flows southwest to its confluence. Its catchment area amounts to about 14,200 square kilometers.

Course

The source is located 15 km west of Lake Tana at an elevation of 2,100 m above sea level. The mouth of the river Beles in the Blue Nile is located about 40 km upstream of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance dam that is under construction, and the water of the Beles will be used in the future.

Transferred water from Lake Tana

Since the Tana Beles hydroelectric power plant has been put into operation in 2010, the Beles has received water from Lake Tana via the Tana-Beles interbasin transfer, which is to be used in a series of irrigation projects below the power plant. For this purpose a series of dams were built. ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Beles_downstream_of_Tana_outlet.jpg" caption="Beles River, after receiving the transferred water from Lake Tana"] ::

These large water transfers from Lake Tana to Beles River affect the movement of people, the hydrogeomorphology, and ecology of the river. The Environmental Impact Assessment of the Beles hydropower project is however considered a formality and is unfindable. The social impacts of the Tana-Beles water transfer have been studied and results published in the high-profile Journal of Hydrology: the dangerously high water discharge from the Beles River has resulted in the drowning of 250 people between 2010 and 2018. The negative impacts on rural livelihoods are however overshadowed by national development goals (electricity production). The external costs (coping with damage) are borne by local people, who have low bargaining power.

Notes

References

1. [http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2008/05/09/000334955_20080509032052/Rendered/PDF/434000PAD0P09617372B01off0use0only1.pdf "Tana & Beles Integrated Water Resources Development: Project Appraisal Document (PAD), Vol.1"], World Bank, 2 May 2008 (accessed 5 May 2009)
2. (2018). "Persistence and changes in the peripheral Beles basin of Ethiopia". Regional Environmental Change.
3. (2019). "Impacts of the hydropower-controlled Tana-Beles interbasin water transfer on downstream rural livelihoods (northwest Ethiopia)". Journal of Hydrology.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::