Socio-Hydrological Modelling of Cooperation and Conflicts in the Transboundary River Nile
Abstract
The cooperation between countries in the Eastern Nile began in 1959, when Egypt and Sudan signed the water allocation treaty for using the Nile waters. However, Ethiopia, the upstream country of the Blue Nile, was not included in this treaty. Droughts in Ethiopia in the 1960s - 1980s triggered Ethiopia's awareness about the importance of the Blue Nile water and the need for transboundary river cooperation. Nonetheless, efforts in pursuing cooperation have not yet led to smooth results. A combination of hydrological shocks, economic growth of Ethiopia, political turmoil in Egypt and Sudan and cooperation failure on the Blue Nile have led Ethiopia to take the decision to unilaterally build the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). This led to an increase in its capacity to use the water from the Blue Nile to generate hydropower and irrigate. The construction of GERD is an outcome of changes in the power balance and cooperation dynamics in the Eastern Nile, as well as a catalyst of changes in other sectors, not only in Ethiopia but also in Egypt and Sudan. The objective of this study is to analyse changes in power balance and cooperation between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt based on hydrological, economic, and social historical data series. A socio-hydrological model is built on the basis of a narrative constructed from an analysis of literature and empirical data. The model is then calibrated using historical data to mimic the dynamics of power balance, cooperation and dam construction between the three riparian countries from 1960 to 2016. We explore potential future development trajectories for the Eastern Nile basin based on the interactions between power, willingness to cooperate, and the distribution of benefits derived from the use of the Nile waters, among the three riparian countries. This study contributes to the understanding of how power shifts affect the changes in hydrological, social, and economic variables in transboundary river management.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.H14H..06M
- Keywords:
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- 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1803 Anthropogenic effects;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1880 Water management;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 4303 Hydrological;
- NATURAL HAZARDS