Evaluation of multi-storage hydropower development in the upper Blue Nile River (Ethiopia): regional perspective

Study region: Eastern Nile River Basin (Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt). Study focus: This study aims to understand the future water development perspective in the Eastern Nile region by considering the current water use situation and proposed reservoirs in the upper Blue Nile (Abbay) River basin in Ethiopia using a simulation approach. The study was carried out by using a monthly time step and historical ensemble time series data as representative of possible near future scenarios. Series of existing and proposed cascaded water development projects in the upper Blue Nile were considered in the study. New hydrological insights for the region: The results indicated an overall energy gain in the Eastern Nile region increases by 258%. The upstream country Ethiopia can generate as much as 38200 GWh/year of Energy while the energy production in Sudan increases by 39%. The cascaded developments integrated with existing water resources systems have a performance efficiency of above 92%. This study was an indicative analysis of the potential benefit of upstream Nile development without significantly affecting existing development in the Nile Basin. Further scientific analysis in this direction would help the Nile countries to reach a water use agreement. Keywords: Eastern Nile, Water resource modeling, Blue Nile cascades, Renaissance Da

Dialogue and diplomacy through the construction of the grand ethiopian renaissance dam

© 2019, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature. Ethiopia unilaterally launched the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the main Blue Nile River (Abay) in April 2011. Since then, a series of negotiations have been conducted between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan at expert, ministerial and head of state levels, mainly to address Egypt’s concern on potential reduction of river flow as a result of the dam. The GERD is portrayed by Egypt as threat for water security while Sudan appears comfortable with immediate access to both water and power. Sudan has tacitly approved Ethiopia’s desire to build the dam anticipating benefits from a dam close to its border that could settle out sediment and control flooding. Other concerns include rate of initial dam filling, dam operations, and potential dam failure. There were four major agreements between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt to address these concerns: formation of International Panel of Experts, signing of Declaration of Principles by heads of states, meeting of foreign and irrigation and water ministers on implementation of IPoE recommendations, approval of water resource and hydropower simulation study by international consultants. Several meetings and consultations have been conducted without tangible outcome because of the complexity of the problem. Several seesaw of agreements and disagreements, cooperation and concern, have been reported albeit any clear future path. At this time, after reviewing the preliminary report of the study plans by the French firms, Ethiopia has pulled out of the support for the study. Significant domestic political instability in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia during the construction of GERD has been contributing to the slow and uncertain progress of dialogue and diplomacy

Evaluation of High-Resolution Multisatellite and Reanalysis Rainfall Products over East Africa

The performance of six satellite-based and three newly released reanalysis rainfall estimates are evaluated at daily time scale and spatial grid size of 0.25 degrees during the period of 2000 to 2013 over the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia, with the view of improving the reliability of precipitation estimates of the wet (June to September) and secondary rainy (March to May) seasons. The study evaluated both adjusted and unadjusted satellite-based products of TMPA, CMORPH, PERSIANN, and ECMWF ERA-Interim reanalysis as well as Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) estimates. Among the six satellite-based rainfall products, adjusted CMORPH exhibits the best accuracy of the wet season rainfall estimate. In the secondary rainy season, unadjusted CMORPH and 3B42V7 are nearly equivalent in terms of bias, POD, and CSI error metrics. All error metric statistics show that MSWEP outperform both unadjusted and gauge adjusted ERA-Interim estimates. The magnitude of error metrics is linearly increasing with increasing percentile threshold values of gauge rainfall categories. Overall, all precipitation datasets need further improvement in terms of detection during the occurrence of high rainfall intensity. MSWEP detects higher percentiles values better than satellite estimate in the wet and poor in the secondary rainy seasons