Khatt Atui is a

wadi Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water onl ...

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

. This dry riverbed begins near

Aousserd Aousserd, Ausert or Auserd is a small town and rural commune in Aousserd Province of the Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab region of Western Sahara, disputed between Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and under Moroccan control. The number of ...

in the disputed territory of

Western Sahara Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the r ...

and runs southwest through the

Dakhlet Nouadhibou Dakhlet Nouadhibou is a bay on the Atlantic shore of Mauritania. The Dakhlet Nouadhibou Region, one of the primary administrative divisions of Mauritania, is named after it. Geography It is one of the largest natural ports on the Atlantic c ...

and

Inchiri Inchiri ( ar, ولاية إينشيري) is a region in western Mauritania. Its capital and only city is Akjoujt. It borders the regions of Adrar to the east, Trarza to the south, and Dakhlet Nouadhibou to the north and west, along with a shor ...

Regions of Mauritania Mauritania is divided into 15 regions: During the Mauritanian occupation of Western Sahara (1975–79), its portion of the territory (roughly corresponding to the lower half of Río de Oro province) was named Tiris al-Gharbiyya. The regions ...

, ending at the Baie d'Aouati on the Atlantic coast east of

Iouik Iouik, also spelled Iwik, is a coastal town in western Mauritania. Located in the Banc d'Arguin National Park within the Dakhlet Nouadhibou region, it sits on a small peninsula. Nearby towns and villages include Uad Guenifa (73.4 nm), Cans ...

Mauritania Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية ...

in Banc d'Arguin National Park. The Atui basin as defined by the Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme of the Global Environment Facility covers and is home to an estimated 99,599 people. The Mauritanian settlements of Chami (on the highway between

Nouakchott , image_skyline = Nouakchott.jpg , image_caption = City view of Nouakchott , pushpin_map = Mauritania#Arab world#Africa , pushpin_relief = 1 , mapsize = , map_caption ...

and Nouadhibou), Imkebden and N'Talfa are located along the wadi, as is the

Tasiast gold mine The Tasiast gold mine is an open-pit gold mine in Mauritania, owned and operated by Kinross Gold. The mine is located north of the capital of Nouakchott in a wadi Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), ...

. Khatt Atui has been suggested as the location of the lower reaches of a major ancient river, dubbed the Tamanrasett paleoriver, that flowed through the Sahara to the Arguin Basin during humid episodes in the late

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). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

. Early

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

archaeological sites have been found along the Mauritanian portion of the wadi.

References

Rivers of Mauritania Rivers of Western Sahara Wadis Former rivers {{WesternSahara-river-stub