Who owns the NIle?

Geeska Africa Online: After years of conflict about control over the Nile, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan have now apparently chosen the path of co-operation over open dispute. Politicians are demonstrating unity, but observers warn that not all differences have been resolved. Many residents of the Ethiopian capital are well equipped with candles, generators and an ample supply of patience in order to cope with the regular power outages in Addis Ababa. During a recent state visit, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi experienced first hand a power blackout that lasted a number of hours. It was almost as if the Ethiopian capital wanted to demonstrate to him the urgent need for electricity from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).The gargantuan project, located on the upper course of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, has been a source of tension between the neighbouring states for years. The reason for this is that Egypt is also heavily dependent on the river. In 2013, Sisi’s predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, even indirectly threatened Ethiopia with war out of fear his country could suffer a water shortage.

For the past few years, the government in Addis Ababa has been ambitiously pursuing the construction of the largest hydroelectric project ever to be built in Africa, located in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia near the border with Sudan.

With a population of around 90 million, Ethiopia is the second most populous country on the continent after Nigeria. This aspiring economic power aims to satisfy its energy requirements through the construction of a series of dams along the Blue Nile. The centrepiece of this policy is the over 3-billion-euro GERD project, which upon completion should produce 6,000 megawatts of electricity – as much as five nuclear power plants. Ethiopia thereby aims to achieve greater independence from crude oil imports and simultaneously provide a stimulus for its emerging industrial sector. In addition, the government in Addis Ababa plans to alleviate its chronic shortage of foreign currency by selling up to 2,000 megawatts of energy to its African neighbours, including Egypt. Although the first supply agreements have already been signed, many conflicts remain unresolved.

Some 160 million people live in the Nile Basin. The desert nation of Egypt fears that upon completion, GERD will quite literally leave Egyptian farmers high and dry with nothing to irrigate their fields, claiming that once the 1,680-square-kilometre reservoir has been flooded, water will evaporate in the heat. Egypt already experienced something similar with the opening of the Aswan Dam in 1971. Egypt and Sudan have even invoked colonial treaties dating back to 1929 and 1959, which guarantee both countries an almost 90 per cent share of the water flow from the Blue Nile and the White Nile as well as ensuring the right of veto over any construction plans....

The falls of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, shot by A. Davey, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Ethiopian dam deal ignores science, warn experts

Rehab Abd Almohsen in SciDev.net: Water scientists from Egypt have raised concerns over a declaration governing the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that is meant to ensure fair access to Nile water for countries downstream.

The Declaration of principles, which the leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan signed in Khartoum, Sudan, on 23 March, is meant to regulate Nile water use following political upheaval over the dam, which is about a third into its construction.

Talking to SciDev.Net, scientists monitoring the declaration’s creation have warned that concerns over the dam’s impact on the environment and local people have been sidelined for gains in political negotiations.

Nader Noureddine, a water resources and soil researcher at Cairo University, says the technical committee appointed by all three countries to oversee the dam’s construction will be allowed to study documents provided by the Ethiopian government, but “will not be allowed to visit the dam or to witness the work on the site”. This, Noureddine says, will seriously impact its ability to make an evidence-based assessment of the dam’s environmental impacts.

“They are not even allowed to discuss issues like the width of the reservoir and specifications of the dam,” Noureddine says. A report from the committee is due to be issued in around 15 months.

Meanwhile, Dia El-Din Ahmed El-Quosy, a professor at Egypt’s National Water Research Center and former advisor to the country’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, says: “The agreement is free of any technical details, such as how the dam reservoir will be filled.”...

NASA image of the Aswan Dam in Egypt

Egypt's Al-Sisi and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister agree on further Renaissance Dam coordination

The Daily News (Egypt): President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said Egypt does not oppose Ethiopia’s right to development through implementation of projects on the River Nile, in a Thursday meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn. Al-Sisi added, however, that there should be consideration of Egypt’s water rights, particularly as the river Nile constitutes the only source of the country’s water needs.

The meeting came on the sidelines of the 24th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) in Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Al-Sisi and Desalgen agreed that the solution for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) issue will be coordinated through a joint commission, according to an official presidential statement by spokesperson.

During his short visit, Al-Sisi also held several bilateral meetings with the presidents of Tunisa, Tunisia, Uganda, Djibouti, South Sudan and the prime minister of Sweden, amongst others.

...The GERD has been an issue of contention and tripartite talks between Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan. The latter two nations have expressed concern over the potential impact the hydroelectric dam could have on their share of vital River Nile water.

The foreign ministers of Egypt and Ethiopia expressed in November mutual recognition for the water rights of each other’s nations following the fifth session of the Egyptian-Ethiopian joint committee in Addis Ababa. ...

The Nile in Sudan, viewed by NASA

Egypt denies Ethiopia row over dam study deadline

Nazret.com via Anadolu Agency: Egyptian Irrigation Minister Hossam Moghazi on Friday denied reports that Ethiopia had asked to extend the deadline for a technical study on the anticipated impact of a controversial mega-dam that it is building on the Nile River's upper reaches. "The agreement between Cairo, Addis Ababa and Khartoum to allow a six-month period for carrying out the evaluation has not changed," Moghazi told The Anadolu Agency.

In recent days, certain Egyptian media outlets had reported that Ethiopia had asked to extend the sixth-month deadline to two years. Moghazi, however, said some research firms that had been shortlisted by a tripartite technical committee to conduct two impact studies on Ethiopia's dam project had asked to postpone submission of their proposals.

He added that the committee had given the firms a December 30 deadline by which to submit proposals.

Since September, a Tripartite National Committee – a 12-member experts' panel responsible for aiding implementation of recommendations issued by an International Panel of Experts – has held two working sessions in Addis Ababa and Cairo.

At the two meetings, representatives of the three countries were able to produce a list of seven firms, one of which will be selected to conduct the studies.

Ethiopia says the multibillion-dollar Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is needed to generate badly-need energy. The project has strained Ethiopia's relations with downstream Egypt, which fears the project will reduce its historical share of water...

The Nile seen from the International Space Station. Via NASA

Stanford scientist examines ways to put stormwater to use in big cities

Terra Daily: Stanford researchers plan to use data from St. Paul, Minnesota, to determine the value of stormwater, and apply these lessons to water projects in Brazil and Ethiopia. Runoff from rainstorms in big cities can represent both threats and opportunities. Too much runoff in the wrong places causes flooding. Too little rainwater in the right places leads to dried-up creeks and rivers.

Water that washes up pollution from city streets can dirty downstream watersheds. Figuring out the best solutions to these problems requires lots of data - data that are easy to get in highly developed countries, but much scarcer in others.

At the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco, Perrine Hamel, a postdoctoral scholar with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, will speak on "Mapping Stormwater Retention in the Cities: A Flexible Model for Data-Scarce Environments." "It's really trying to mimic what would happen in a natural watershed," said Perrine.

Initially, Perrine and co-author Bonnie Keeler from the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment plan to study the data-rich Capitol Region watershed in St. Paul, Minnesota. Then they plan to extend that work to the data-poor settings of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Their goal is to determine the value of stormwater retention services for large cities in developing countries, and to compare their benefits to those of other services like recreation or urban heat island mitigation. Natural Capital Project partners World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy want to help large cities like Addis Ababa develop in ways that enhance the provision of ecosystem services and that don't create future problems from stormwater runoff. ...

A stormwater management pond in Patuxent, Maryland, shot by Andrew Bossi, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic licenses  

Press 4 for fertilizer - M-farming in Ethiopia

IRIN: One reason farmers in Africa mostly produce so much less than those in other parts of the world is that they have limited access to the technical knowledge and practical tips that can significantly increase yields. But as the continent becomes increasingly wired, this information deficit is narrowing.

While there are other factors, such as poor infrastructure and low access to credit and markets, that have helped keep average yields in Africa largely unchanged since the 1960s, detailed and speedily-delivered information is now increasingly recognized as an essential part of bringing agricultural production levels closer to their full potential.

In Ethiopia, which already has one of the most extensive systems in the world for educating the 85 percent of the population who work the land for a living, this recognition has driven the development of a multilingual mobile phone-based resource centre.

The hotline, operated by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, and Ethio Telecom, and created by the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), has proved a huge hit. Since its July launch and still in its pilot phase, more than three million farmers in the regions of Amhara, Oromia, Tigray and the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNPR) have punched 8028 on their mobiles to access the system, which uses both interactive voice response (IVR) and SMS technology....

Image by Mmckinley, Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Climate-driven migration increasing disease burden in Ethiopia

Thomson Reuters Foundation: ...Experts have linked more irregular rainfall and crop failures to a rise in migrant workers in Ethiopia. Meteorologists said Maksegnit, in the highlands, should record as much as 1,059 millimeters of rainfall during the peak season, but in the last few years rainfall has been as low as 317 millimeters.

That has led to a decline in staple crop farming, while cash crop farming in the lowlands pulls the struggling poor from the highlands, and toward new health threats.

Changing climatic conditions also are changing the range of the sandflies, said Daniel Argaw Dagne, of the leishmaniasis control programme at the World Health Organization. “Kalaazar is a vector borne disease that can be influenced by climate change,” he said. “Global warming affects the distribution and growth of vectors.”....

An Ethiopian farm compound, shot by by A. Davey, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Food security alarm for east, central Africa

IRIN: Some 20 million people are facing acute food insecurity in eastern and central Africa, with most of them being at “crisis” and “emergency” levels, according to aid agencies. This figure compares unfavorably with 15.8 million people in July 2013.  The affected countries include Somalia, Uganda, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Central Africa Republic (CAR), Sudan, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Tanzania.

“The overall nutrition situation in the region has deteriorated precipitously and, according to survey results, the Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) levels are higher than 20 percent, exceeding the World Health Organization’s emergency threshold of 15 percent, especially in parts of South Sudan, CAR, Somalia and northern Kenya,” said the East and Central Africa Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG), a multi-stakeholder regional forum chaired by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

FSNWG warned that the situation could deteriorate further in the absence of quick action.  “FSNWG strongly believes that in the absence of an increased and immediate multi-sectoral response, the food and nutrition status of affected populations is likely to deteriorate further.”...

Kenya food aid, image by USAID

Famine in the Horn of Africa (1984) was caused by El Niño and currents in the Indian Ocean

AlphaGalileo via the University of Ghent: Oceanic patterns are important drivers of climatic variability. There is a clear link between periods of drought in the North Ethiopian Highlands and oceanic phases of El Niño, the Indian Ocean Dipole and the Southwestern Monsoons.

In order to prove these links, PhD student Sil Lanckriet (Department of Geography, Ghent University) analyzed weather data since the 1950s, as delivered from a meteorological computer model. He used a procedure known as ‘empirical orthogonal teleconnection analysis’ (EOT). According to Piet Termonia of the Royal Meteorological Institute, such statistical techniques are a clear step forward, since they allow linking oceanic patterns across the planet with the climatic situation at a particular location on the earth surface.

For his PhD, Sil Lanckriet is studying climatic fluctuations in Ethiopia over the past centur
ies, as well as their impact on periods of drought and processes of soil erosion. His study area is located in Korem, the place written in our collective memory by several BBC documentaries, Live Aid and by the pictures of Sebastião Salgado. His promoters Jan Nyssen and Amaury Frankl are well acquainted with the area. They even relocated the exact locations of the pictures and documentaries that were world news at the time. “Our research experience in Ethiopia shows that it is certainly possible that a similar drought will occur again, but this time it will probably not lead to a famine as in 1984. The Ethiopians have been very active on matters such as reforestation and soil and water conservation. We could prove that the land is now much less vulnerable for the occurrence of droughts”.

Enyew Adgo (Bahir Dar University) points out that East African meteorological agencies are well aware of the interactions between the Ethiopian weather and fluctuations of El Niño in the Pacific Ocean. The researchers show that similar patterns in the Indian Ocean should be incorporated by the meteorological models, in order to improve the prediction power of systems for Famine Early Warning...

Approaching Zanzibar, shot by Rob, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Building food security in Ethiopia

IRIN: Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), set up in 2005, aims to make fully food secure the millions of people still dependent on food aid, provide support to the vulnerable to prevent the depletion of livestock, and create productive assets at community level. But nearly a decade on and over US$3 billion spent, how successful has it been?

PSNP claims to be a programme that bridges the response gap between emergency relief and long-term development aid, and helps build resilience.  Initially, it was available in four regions - Tigray, Amhara, Oromiya, and the Southern Nations and Nationalities’ Peoples’ Region - and was later extended to the more remote regions of Afar (in 2006) and the Somali Region (2007), according to the World Bank, one of its main backers.

The Ethiopian government spends 1.1 percent of GDP on PSNP and a complementary scheme called the Household Asset Building Program (HABP).  Both schemes are largely donor funded. The current phase of PSNP (2010-2014) which includes HABP, costs more than $2 billion. Donors include the World Bank, International Development Association (IDA), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Danish International Development Assistance (DANIDA), UK Department for International Development (DFID), European Commission, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the governments of Canada, Ireland, Netherlands and the World Food Programme and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

PSNP provides transfers - cash or food - to between six and eight million chronically food insecure Ethiopians for six months each year, according to DFID. At least 85 percent of the beneficiaries receive cash transfers as wages for labour on small-scale public works projects. These projects are selected by the community and contribute to environmental rehabilitation and local economic development, while 15 percent are “direct support” beneficiaries (disabled, elderly, pregnant or lactating women) who receive unconditional transfers.

Both donors and the government have become increasingly aware that PSNP does not really help secure those who have very limited or no assets against shocks, and help them “graduate” from a chronic situation to a state of food security....

Food aid at Dolo Kobe camp in Ethiopia, USAID photo

Economic cooperation between Egypt and Ethiopia on the rise

Walaa Hussein in al-Monitor: Cairo is working on resuming the Ethiopian-Egyptian activities that were suspended on all levels. This comes in tandem with the preparations for the expected visit of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to Ethiopia, and as part of the restoration of dialogue aiming to settle the dispute between the countries over the Renaissance Dam under construction on the Blue Nile. The dialogue was re-opened following the meeting that was held between the Ethiopian prime minister and Sisi on the sidelines of the last African Summit held in Equatorial Guinea

Ambassador Salah Abdel Sadek, chairman of Egypt’s State Information Service, said in an interview with Al-Monitor, “A call has been made to activate the activities of the Egyptian-Ethiopian committee, provided that its meetings will be resumed to look into ways to support relations between both countries, and reinforce cooperation on the scientific, cultural, agricultural, irrigation, educational, tourism, communication, meat industry [and] industrial zones levels.”

In 2006, the Egyptian-Ethiopian committee was formed, presided over by the foreign ministers of both countries, and its respective agreement was drafted. As tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia in the negotiations over the Nile waters flared, the work of the committee came to a halt. Its last meeting was held in 2011 on the sidelines of the visit of the late Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to Egypt, following the January 25 Revolution.

After the suspension of this committee’s work, Zenawi decided to form a tripartite Egyptian-Ethiopian-Sudanese committee to solve the issue of the dam and bring into view the damages inflicted on the two downstream countries. The meetings of the committee, however, were not completed and its activities were suspended as the relations between Egypt and Ethiopia became tense again when the dialogue over the crisis of the dam was hindered, as related to Al-Monitor by an official in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.

The same source said, “The president’s visit that is being planned will not only involve Addis Ababa, but also a number of the Nile Basin countries, as the president wishes to re-open dialogue with upstream countries over the mechanism of the just use of the Nile water in such a way that does not harm any other country.”...

Aerial view of the Blue Nile leaving Lake Tana. Image released into the public domain by ZeGhion

A fresh start for climate change refugees

IRIN: Firmly attached to her home region and long used to the harshness of her living conditions, Amina Aliyu would probably not see herself as a potential “climate change refugee”. But there is a strong probability that in 10 or 15 years the place where she lives will no longer be fit for human habitation and migration to another region, or even another country, will be the only option.

...Aliyu has seen climatic changes at first hand. Rainfall, already scarce, has further diminished. But Aliyu is adamant she will not abandon her home region for a less hostile environment. Asked if she could leave she responds emphatically: “No! Generations of my family lies buried here, I cannot leave them. This is my only home.”

But if living conditions become even less sustainable, Aliyu will face difficult options: to stay in the hope of finding new ways of generating income or receiving more external help; moving to another part of the region, or moving even further away and risking the loss of her coveted ancestral and cultural ties.

Cases like that of Aliyu are of obvious interest to the Nansen Initiative, which was set up by the Governments of Switzerland and Norway in October 2012. The Nansen Initiative seeks to develop “a protection agenda addressing the needs of people displaced across international borders by natural hazards, including the effects of climate change”.

The Nansen Initiative works on the premise that climate change and migration need to be looked at together. Climate change will mean larger populations being challenged by both sudden-onset disasters and slow-onset disasters in the future.

The Nansen Initiative argues that current planning mechanisms on climate change, both national and international, are insufficient. The body argues for more effective early warning for extreme climatic events, better water management and more sustained efforts to reduce pressure on fragile environments. The Nansen Initiative particularly highlights the need for the protection of affected populations....

Refugees at Dolo-Odo Camp in Ethiopia, US Embassy photo 

The New Climate Economy launched in Addis Ababa

AllAfrica.com via the Government of Ethiopia: The New Climate Economy was launched on Thursday (March 6) in Addis Ababa with the aim of promoting sustainable economic development and reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.

The NCE is a research project initiated by seven countries, including Ethiopia, to supply adequate and reliable evidence so as to help governments, communities and businesses achieve economic development while combating the risks of climate change. It is the flagship project of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, founded by Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Norway, South Korea, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The objective is to put forward recommendations on actions that can help countries attain economic prosperity along with combating climate change. The Commission will give a report on the work of the New Climate Economy in September 2014 to the Leaders' Summit on Climate Change. The launching ceremony of the project was attended by New Climate Economy Programme Director, Jeremy Oppenheim, Ethiopia's Minister for the Environment, Belete Tefere, and the United Kingdom Ambassador to Ethiopia, Ambassador Greg Dorey.

Mr. Oppenheim noted Ethiopia's commendable efforts in achieving low carbon economic growth and its efforts towards realization of a carbon neutral economic model by the year 2025. He emphasized that the New Climate Economy would provide best practices from other emerging economies, including China, India and Brazil. Minister Belete expressed his thanks for the launch of the project in Ethiopia and underlined the pivotal importance of "well organized and effective common action" to realize Ethiopia's ambitious Climate Resilient Green Economy Initiative....

Pastoralist aspirations versus policy in the Horn of Africa

IRIN: Since the Horn of Africa drought of 2011 aid agencies have been working to understand the changes taking place in the drylands, hoping to better anticipate people’s needs. Recent research shows these changes go beyond climate and environment to encompass social and economic factors. The findings have important policy implications.

“The predominant narrative of what these people want to do with their lives is a traditional, pastoral one, where their lives focus on raising animals and continuing in a tradition of pastoral transhumance little changed over centuries,” notes Changes in the arid lands: the expanding rangeland, a joint report by the Red Cross, Oxfam and Save the Children.

External factors, such as drought, have been used to explain pastoralists’ movement from nomadic livestock keeping to living in settlements and peri-urban areas. But this explanation ignores the rapidly changing socio-economic circumstances in these communities, the report says.

“The predominant narrative did not take into consideration vast increases in population (approximately six times greater than 50 years ago), growing materialism and commercialization, and increasing connectedness to the world outside their community… The narrative needed to be updated.”

Researchers asked communities in Shinile and Jijiga in Ethiopia, Togdheer in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, and Turkana, Kenya, what they want for the future. “Across the board, education was listed as the number one method to reach one’s aspirations; either for the interviewees themselves or for their children and grandchildren. Parents - no matter where they live - hope for their children to be educated and to get jobs,” stated the report....

Cattle being watered in Ethiopia's Ghibe Valley, shot by  ILRI/Stevie Mann, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Egypt and Ethiopia spar over the Nile

Hassen Hussain in Al Jazeera.com: On Jan. 8, Ethiopia turned down Egypt’s demand that it suspend construction of its mega-dam on the Nile, further escalating tensions between the two states. Fearing that Ethiopia’s $4.2 billion project would reduce the river’s flow, Egypt calls for a halt in construction until the dam’s downstream impact is determined. Otherwise, it has vowed to protect its “historical rights” to the Nile at “any cost.”

While scoffing at Egyptian threats, Ethiopia has called for Cairo’s collaboration in negotiations and claims that the dam will have no adverse effect on Egypt. It would, in fact, decrease evaporation and improve water flow. Ethiopia hopes that the ambitious hydroelectric project, slated to be completed in 2017, would catapult the country out of poverty. Frustrated by what it described as Ethiopia’s stubborn stance, Cairo is threatening to take the issue to the United Nations Security Council.

Is this just standard diplomatic brinkmanship before an inevitable compromise, or a harbinger of a looming water war? Regardless, the lack of progress on the diplomatic front bodes
ill for a quick end to a stalemate that has long gripped the region. Home to 600 million people, more than half of Africa’s total population, the Nile Basin is already traumatized by endless internal political strife and mounting pressures to feed a population growing at Malthusian proportions.

However, as ominous as it sounds, the collapse of the talks does not necessarily mean Egypt and Ethiopia will soon be locking horns. Despite suggestions to the contrary, this is simply the waning phase of a protracted diplomatic dance before an inevitable conciliation....

Egypt farmers fear water supply threat from Ethiopia dam

Seed Daily via AFP: With an economy already in tatters, Egypt's farmers fear the building of an upstream Nile dam in Ethiopia could lead to water shortages and crop failures with catastrophic effects on their livelihood.

"We don't want this dam," says Saeed al-Simari, standing on his modest land in Egypt's fertile Nile Delta region. "We want to plant our land, we need water. It's hard enough with the water we have, imagine when we don't have anymore," said Simari. "We are very worried about our crops," he told AFP.

Ethiopia is pressing ahead with construction of a $4.2 billion (3.2 billion euro) Grand Renaissance Dam, set to become Africa's biggest hydroelectric dam when completed. The announcement of the project caused a national outcry in Egypt, with politicians, media and farmers warning that the dam could pose a national security threat.

Water experts in Egypt say there is already a water deficit in the country due to the exploding population. "The average person uses 620 to 640 cubic metres (21,000 to 22,600 cubic feet) per year. With the water poverty level defined at 1,000 cubic metres, we are already below the water poverty level," says Alaa al-Zawahry, a dam expert and member of a government commission tasked with studying the downstream impact of Ethiopia's dam....

NASA image of the Nile Delta

In switch, Egypt may join Ethiopia In Nile dam project

Ayah Aman in Al-Monitor: Cairo and Addis Ababa may soon reach a truce to calm their dispute over the construction of the Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. Both countries have recently shown good faith and agreed to negotiate about the project. Egypt has even agreed to take part in building the dam, though without declaring its conditions for doing so.

At a news conference Oct. 7, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn announced that his country welcomes the participation of Egypt and Sudan in the construction of the dam and stressed that his government considers the dam to be jointly owned by Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt. Cairo viewed his statement as a positive step toward reaching a consensus on the project, despite its earlier sharp criticism of it.

In a telephone conversation Oct. 17, Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdul Muttalib told Al-Monitor: “Egypt doesn’t mind joining the Ethiopian government in building the dam for the service and development of the Ethiopian people. But we must agree on a number of items in a clear way to prevent any damage to Egypt as a result of the dam construction. The Egyptian government always opts for cooperation and participation. … During the coming negotiations with Ethiopia over the dam, we will clarify our position regarding the policy and method of operating the dam, the size of the storage lake attached to it, and how to fill it with water in times of flood and drought.” He stressed, “Egypt will definitely not participate in the construction unless these policies are agreed upon and agreements regarding them are signed.”

...Egypt gets 55.5 billion cubic meters of Nile water annually in accordance with the 1959 agreement signed between Egypt and Sudan. About 85% of that share comes from the Ethiopian plateau, in particular from the Blue Nile tributary, on which Ethiopia intends to build the Renaissance Dam to store 63 billion cubic meters of water in and generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity. The Ethiopian, Sudanese and Egyptian water ministers are expected to meet Oct. 20-23 in Khartoum to discuss the May report of the Tripartite Commission on the repercussions of the dam and how to implement the report’s recommendations for avoiding harm to any of the Nile states....

A rendering of the dam provided by Salini General Contractors, the Italian company inked to build the dam, March 31, 2011. (photo by Wikipedia/Salini)

Loss and damage from climate change

Science Daily: An open access special issue of the International Journal of Global Warming brings together, for the first time, empirical evidence of loss and damage from the perspective of affected people in nine vulnerable countries. The articles in this special issue show how climatic stressors affect communities, what measures households take to prevent loss and damage, and what the consequences are when they are unable to adjust sufficiently. The guest-editors, Kees van der Geest and Koko Warner of the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in Bonn, Germany, introduce the special issue with an overview of key findings from the nine research papers, all of which are available online free of charge.

'Loss and damage' refers to adverse effects of climate variability and climate change that occur despite mitigation and adaptation efforts. Warner and van der Geest discuss the loss and damage incurred by people at the local-level based on evidence from research teams working in nine vulnerable countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Micronesia, Mozambique and Nepal. The research papers pool data from 3269 household surveys and more than 200 focus groups and expert interviews.

The research reveals four loss and damage pathways. Residual impacts of climate stressors occur when:

• existing coping/adaptation to biophysical impact is not enough;
• measures have costs (including non-economic) that cannot be regained;
• despite short-term merits, measures have negative effects in the longer term; or
• no measures are adopted -- or possible -- at all.

The articles in this special issue provide evidence that loss and damage happens simultaneously with efforts by people to adjust to climatic stressors. The evidence illustrates loss and damage around barriers and limits to adaptation: growing food and livelihood insecurity, unreliable water supplies, deteriorating human welfare and increasing manifestation of erosive coping measures (e.g. eating less, distress sale of productive assets to buy food, reducing the years of schooling for children, etc.). These negative impacts touch upon people's welfare and health, social cohesion, culture and identity -- values that contribute to the functioning of society but which elude monetary valuation....

Turner's 1805 painting, "The Shipwreck"

Ethiopian dam plans spark regional tensions

Rehad Abd Almohsen in SciDev.net: A group of Egyptian academics and experts have declared their opposition to the current plans for the US$4.8 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam — on which work has started, and which will be Africa's largest hydroelectric power plant when completed — because they believe it will damage their country.

Egypt's Nile Basin Group was set up to assess the possible threat from the dam, which will lie close to Ethiopia's border with Sudan. Its members warn that the structure could slash the Nile's flow, especially in Egypt and Sudan, which depend on the river's waters.

Haider Yusuf Bakheit, a Sudanese hydrologist, was reported in an article in Infrastructure News as saying that the dam "will hold back nearly one-and-a-half times the average annual flow" of the Blue Nile, one of the Nile's two main tributaries, and "drastically affect the downstream nations' agriculture, electricity and water supply".

"Given the massive size of the dam, it could lose as much as three billion cubic metres of water to evaporation each year," he warned.

There was alarm in Egypt when the plan to build the dam was announced in 2011  — with some MPs talking off the record about Egypt's right to retaliate militarily — but much of the opposition now focuses on Ethiopia's decision to increase the size of the reservoir behind the dam.

"The original plan was to create a lake that would store 14 billion cubic metres of water, which is enough to generate electricity, but then the lake's capacity was increased to 74 billion cubic metres," Nader Noureddin, a member of the Nile Basin Group and professor of soil and water resources at Cairo University, tells SciDev.Net. Planned electricity output has also risen, from 5,250 to 6,000 megawatts...

A dam over the Blue Nile north of Addis Ababa, shot by Adam Jones, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

The struggle for control of the world's longest river

Elissa Jobson in AllAfrica.com via Africa In Fact: Strong emotions rise to the surface when discussions turn to the Nile, the world’s longest river. Most debate swirls around control of its basin which is shared by 11 African nations. Politicians and others have pondered the chances of a war over its life-giving waters: slim but increasing given the escalating tensions over Ethiopia’s plan to build a massive hydropower dam on the river.

“For Egypt the Nile equals life,” affirms Mohamed Edrees, Egypt’s ambassador to Ethiopia. “It is almost the only source of water for Egypt and that means that it is the only source of life. So it’s obvious that this issue, for Egyptians, is of vital importance and of high sensitivity. It is an issue of existence.”

The Nile basin covers almost 10% of Africa’s landmass (3.1m km2) and supports over 200m people, more than half living below the poverty line and dependent on rainfed agriculture for their survival. The twin pressures of energy and food security—through hydroelectric generation and irrigation schemes—are placing ever-greater demands on the Nile. In addition, land degradation, rising temperatures and possible changes in rainfall patterns, as a result of climate change, are threatening to alter the river’s flow.

Egypt is implementing large new irrigation projects that will draw additional water from the Nile. It is especially anxious about increased usage by the other ten Nile basin states south of its border: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a massive hydroelectric installation 40km east of Sudan, is one of the new projects worrying the downstream nations of Egypt and Sudan. Standing at 145m high and 1,800m long with a reservoir holding 63 billion cubic metres of water, this dam will be one of Africa’s largest. It has the potential to generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity—three times Ethiopia’s existing capacity—and is expected to turn the country into a regional power hub....

Landsat photo of the Nile Delta from space