The Dawa River is a perennial river in southeastern Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

. Rising in the mountains east of Aleta Wendo

Aleta Wendo

Aleta Wendo is a town in southern Ethiopia. Located in a fertile and forested area near Lake Abaya, not far from the sources of the Ganale Dorya and Dawa Rivers in the Sidama Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region, this town has a longitude and latitude of with an...

, the Dawa flows south and east to join with the Ganale Dorya

Ganale Dorya River

The Ganale Dorya River is a perennial river in southeastern Ethiopia. Rising in the mountains east of Aleta Wendo, the Dawa flows south and east to join with the Dawa at the border with Somalia to become the Jubba. Tributaries include the Welmel, Weyib , Dumale, Doya, Hawas and the Hambala...

 at the border with Somalia

Somalia

Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

 to become the Jubba

Jubba River

The Jubba River is a river in southern Somalia. It begins at the border with Ethiopia, where the Dawa and Ganale Dorya rivers meet, and flows directly south to the Indian Ocean, where it empties at the Goobweyn juncture.-History:...

. The river forms part of the Ethiopia–Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

 border and part of the Ethiopia–Somalia border.

The river valley is relatively wide, with gently sloping sides of exposed bedrock. The lower part flows through a valley which would be classed as a relatively young erosion cycle. Prospectors have found gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

 along the Dawa between the Awata and Kojowa tributaries. The titanium

Titanium

Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....

 minerals rutile

Rutile

Rutile is a mineral composed primarily of titanium dioxide, TiO2.Rutile is the most common natural form of TiO2. Two rarer polymorphs of TiO2 are known:...

 and ilmenite

Ilmenite

Ilmenite is a weakly magnetic titanium-iron oxide mineral which is iron-black or steel-gray. It is a crystalline iron titanium oxide . It crystallizes in the trigonal system, and it has the same crystal structure as corundum and hematite....

 were found by geologists working for the Texas Africa Exploration Company in 1958.