Trouble on the Nile - The Good, the Bad (Part 1)

 'The unilateralism that is being displayed by Ethiopia threatens the water security of Egypt and Sudan. It does imperil the livelihoods of 150 million inhabitants (...) In this case, Ethiopia has not demonstrated the political will to reach an agreement.'

A storm is brewing over the Nile. The above words came from the Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Sameh Shoukry on July 8th 2021, following a meeting of the UN Security Council (video below). This meeting, requested by Egypt and Sudan (Saied, 2021), took place in the context of Ethiopia's second unilateral filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a move that attracted severe criticism from its downstream neighbours. With negotiations between the three countries over the length of the dam's impounding period on hold, political solutions remain ever-elusive.

This post is the first of a two-parter. In this post, we will consider 'The Good' and 'The Bad' of the Renaissance Dam, in terms of its regional impacts, particularly upon the downstream nations.

The good...

Let's start with the positive effects of the GERD.

- As a hydropower generation project, it 's hardly surprising that clean energy production is a key benefit of the dam. Ethiopians will clearly profit immensely from this hydroelectric power. However, there will be plenty of energy to go around. Eldardiry and Hossain (2021) write that 15% of Ethiopian annual electricity production will be distributed in the Eastern African Power Pool, which includes Egypt and Sudan amongst 9 others. Looking past the clear domestic economic benefit of selling cheap and clean energy to neighbouring countries, these exports could catalyse sustainable regional development (Maupin, 2016), with an astounding 200 million across the EAPP-represented region (excluding Ethiopia) lacking access to electricity (Our World in Data, 2019). 

- The GERD will allow for the regulation of water flow of the Blue Nile. This should offer several benefits:

• Reduction of siltation on the Blue Nile (Yihdego et al., 2017) - silt and sediment, originating from the Ethiopian highlands, cover the Blue Nile. The GERD will reduce these extreme levels of siltation - by up to 86% - which inflict significant efficiency costs upon the downstream hydropower dams, such as Sudan's Roseires and Egypt's Aswan High Dam.
• Drought and flood management (Tesfa, 2013) - currently, seasonal variability in the Blue Nile's flow rate renders the mitigation of extreme climate events near impossible. The GERD should provide a buffer against intensified climate variability, by ensuring a steady perennial flow of water. 

Graph depicting BNR and NR annual flow rate variation
with and without the GERD
Tesfa, 2013 

• A boost to Sudanese agriculture (Tawfik, 2016) -  regulation of the Blue Nile's flow will enable  larger agricultural outputs for Sudan owing to a consistent, non-seasonal supply of water for irrigation. Yihdego et al. (2017) propose that 500,000 hectares of new irrigated agricultural land could emerge due to this regulated flow. As a riparian state, this will be invaluable to the Sudanese economy (Siddig et al., 2021), with several Gulf countries set to become major importers of Sudan-grown food (Eldardiry and Hossain, 2021). Egypt will also feel this benefit, albeit to a lesser extent. 

- The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam should cut down evaporation losses in the downstream Nile  since the storage of water for key downstream reservoirs such as the Aswan High Dam, where 12% of water is lost to evaporation (Yihdego et al., 2017), can be moved upstream into the Ethiopian Highlands where loss rates are far lower. This would provide a line of defence against climate change-driven drought events (Blackmore and Whittington, 2008), and a further irrigation boost around downstream reservoirs (Mulat and Moges, 2014).

... the Bad ...

The GERD clearly comes with its drawbacks, as well.

- During the impoundment, Egypt's freshwater supply will be restrained. Elsayed et al. (2020) estimate that food production and hydropower generation could be reduced by rates of 9-19% and 3-9% respectively, while Geological Society of America (2017) is even more pessimistic about reduced power generation. The uncertainty here hinges on the currently-unestablished filling rate and the climactic conditions during the impounding. Nonetheless, the filling process will no-doubt disrupt Egypt's Water-Food-Energy nexus, and we can hypothesise that the economic costs of the GERD during its filling will supersede the benefits (Kahsay et al., 2015). Sudan would also be affected by the filling process, although predictions here vary even more.

- Yihdego et al. (2017) claim that the Egypt's Nile Delta Region, traversing the Mediterranean, will be gravely affected by the lack of sediment replenishment, meaning the the land will start to subside and lose its fertility. This will harm regional agricultural production. Conniff (2017) suggests that loss of land, coupled with sea-level rises, will lead to intrusion by saltwater, having drastic impacts on per-capita water availability. 

-  In Sudan, the decrease in sedimentation could lead to greater levels of erosion (IPoE, 2013) in riverbanks and riverbeds. In addition to this, lack of sediment could aggravate the aquatic ecosystems due to dissolved organic matter losses, and impact local brick-making industries.

- On the point of livelihoods, regulated Blue Nile flows would make flood-recession agriculture a thing of the past, and they might also hinder seasonal replenishment of groundwater aquifers.

- Over 5,110 people living downstream will have to be resettled (Yihdego et al., 2017) on top of those 20,000 locals mentioned previously.

This is just a summary of some of the issues with the GERD. Whilst the Ethiopian government clearly assessed the costs and benefits of this project, it has been noted by the IPoE (2013) that they overlooked many downstream factors. We also have to consider how these impacts might interact. For example, if Sudan ups its agricultural output, Egypt's water supply might be further squeezed, encouraging a political response.

Now that we know some of the GERD's impacts of the GERD, we can in the next post delve into the responses of the Egyptian and Sudanese political leadership towards the dam's construction. Spoiler: it gets Ugly.