Water Scarcity with Patterson
Ref: Glenn Patterson (2021). Water Scarcity. JHU MS-ESP Course of Instruction. Email: scampi162@gmail.com
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Summary
An overview of water scarcity in the context of several cascading factors including climate change, population growth, increasing standard of living, groundwater decline, pollution, and hydrology.
Today, a third of the world’s population lives in water scarce areas. By 2025, it’s expected to be two-thirds.
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Earth’s Hydrology
Saltwater: 97.5%.
Freshwater: 2.5%.
Glaciers: 68.9%.
Groundwater: 30.8%.
Lakes/Rivers: .3%.
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Water Use
Consumptive Use: Water is not returned to body of water after use.
Non-consumptive Use: Water is returned to body of water after use.
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Water Scarcity
Water Scarcity: Limitations on the availability of clean freshwater suitable for the meeting the needs of humans and ecosystems; occurs when the demand for water from all sectors is higher than the available supply.
Physical Water Scarcity: An environment where there is not enough water to meet the demands of human’s ecosystems (i.e., deserts).
The majority of rainfall in the middle East occurs between December and February.
Economic Water Scarcity: An environment where the natural supply of freshwater is sufficient however economic and political conditions prevent people and ecosystems from getting the clean water they need. Includes funding, governance, pollution, disease, and conflict.
Lack of Funding: Poverty, poor allocation of available funds, insufficient funding for infrastructure, maintenance, system management, monitoring, enforcement, planning.
Poor Governance: Corruption, inadequate representation, marginalization of the poor and powerless, poor planning, mismanagement.
Poor Governance: Characterized by and prone to armed conflict, corruption, inadequate representation, marginalization, poor planning, mismanagement, lack of follow through on promises, focus on high vis spending rather than basic needs.
Effective Governance: Characterized by and prone to listen to and represent the will of the people, adhere to democratic principles, pay attention to long-term societal needs, consider and be fair to future generations, manage financial and natural resources wisely with minimal waste, exhibit high standards of personal integrity, make promises carefully and follow through on them, ensure that the public work force is selected based on merit, well trained, well-coordinated, and held accountable, support common-sense legislation and provide for effective enforcement.
Armed Conflict: Diverts resources away from public services.
Disease: Water Borne Disease.
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Water Scarcity Solutions
Rain/Runoff Harvesting: Store excess water at the right time and in the right place (monsoons) using storage tanks, canals, pits, reservoirs, dams, aquifers, aqueducts, piping, &c.
Use of environmentally suitable crops.
Cloud Seeding: Use of Ag-I as condensation nuclei to inhibit rainstorms.
Atmospheric Water Harvesting (‘Air-Water Generation- AWG’): Capture of water (humidity) from the atmosphere.
Warka Water (100l per day).
Desalinization: Extraction of freshwater from saltwater.
Flash Distillation: Desalinization by boiling water to separate out salt.
Reverse Osmosis: Desalinization using strong pumps that push seawater through semi permeable membranes to separate water from salt.
Groundwater Extraction: Can leads to subsidence and saltwater intrusion (near sea/ocean). Requires policy, regulation, monitoring, enforcement, education, conservation, and potentially reduced irrigated acreage and/or artificial recharge.
Sustainability: Restrict annual renewable supply to support long term resource use at sustainable level.
Conjunctive Use: Development of water systems that are reliable on multiple sources.
Government: Controls externalities to counteract the tragedy of the commons.
Reconnect rivers and flood plains to promote gw recharge.
Remove invasive phreatophytes such as Russian olive and tamarisk.
Reduce Water Use (Conservation)
70% of domestic water use is for landscaping (do it late in the day).
Golf Courses uses as much as 65-325 homes in the NW to SW.
Irrigate in morning and evening.
Reduce cultivation.
Convert from spray to drip irrigation.
Replace lawns with artificial turf or xeriscape.
Use of artificial turf on golf courses.
Recycle treated wastewater.
Reduce Transmission Loss: Upgrade/improve infrastructure.
There are 700 water main breaks per day in the USA.
In Pakistan, 40% of water is lose in transmission.
17% of drinking water is lost to leaks (2.1T gal/yr).
Reduce Evaporative Loss from Lakes, Dams, Reservoirs.
Augment Supply: Use of trans-watershed water transport for supply, desal, harvesting/capture methods, weather modification.
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Water Law
Riparian Doctrine: Gives landowners adjacent to a stream equal right to its water use.
Prior Appropriation: First in time, first in right.
Rule of Capture (law of the biggest pump): A rule that grants landowner absolute right to groundwater under their land.
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Water Measurements
Evaporation Pan: Measures water loss due to evaporation.
Hygrometer: Measures the amount of water in the atmosphere (RH).
Microwave Water Radiometer: Measures the amount of water vapor in a column of air.
Rain Gauge: Measures the amount of precipitation.
Seasonal Snowpack: Measure of stored water in snow or glaciers by weight.
Gauges: Measure streamflow.
Bathymetry: Used to measure the volume of water in a lake.
Infiltrometer: Measures water infiltration into the ground.
Gauge Differentials: Measures changes in Groundwater storage.
Hydrostatic Head Differentials: Measures GW flow.
Flumes/Flowmeters: Tracks diverted water.
Satellites (GIS): Used to measure ET.
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Water Management Principles
Build a shared vision for your community’s water future.
Set limits on total consumptive use of water; the single most important rule that a community of water users can adopt will be the setting of a limit or “cap” on total consumptive use of water.
Option 1: Create a virtual lineup of water use entitlements, and supply water to each sequential user in the line until all of the available water has been consumed
Prior Appropriation: First in time, first in right.
Option 2: Create a reserve of water to ensure that basic human needs and ecosystems are protected, then allocate the remainder. Watershed-specific reserves have two parts:
Basic Human Needs Reserve: Ensures that everyone living in the watershed is guaranteed sufficient water to meet basic needs such as drinking, cooking, and washing.
Ecological Reserve: Ensures enough water in rivers or lakes to support their ecological health.
Option 3: Set a cap on the total volume of water that can be consumptively used during the driest years, but then allow additional allocations during wetter years.
Cap-and-Flex: The limiting, or capping, of high-security entitlements provides certainty in how much water can be used in the driest years, while the flex feature enables water users to access additional water through low-security entitlements during wetter years, thereby fostering maximum economic productivity.
Allocate a specific volume to each user, then monitor and enforce.
Quantification should be defined for each of the 12 months of the year, because water availability can vary substantially from month to month.
High-Security Entitlements: Every individual or family must be guaranteed an inalienable entitlement to enough water to meet basic needs.
When a community of water users does not understand or support the rules imposed on water allocation, it will be exceedingly difficult to gain cooperation or to police violators.
Invest in water conservation to its maximum potential.
Water conservation is by far the least expensive way of addressing a water shortage.
Use smart meters, water use transparency, build social stigma around water usage to drive competition and awareness.
Enable trading of water entitlements.
Many concerns have been expressed about water markets, and they need to be given careful consideration. Most of these worries center on the possibility that water entitlements will be bought up by wealthy entities—water speculators, big corporations, or cities—leaving poorer people or freshwater ecosystems without water. This is a very real possibility if appropriate regulatory controls and other essential water governance functions are not put into place explicitly, and early.
Water buyers should not be allowed to hoard water by acquiring water entitlements and not using them, and they should not be allowed to transport water out of a stressed watershed.
If too much water is being consumptively used, subsidize reductions in consumption (i.e., provide a stimulus for improving irrigation efficiency.
Learn from mistakes or better ideas, and adjust as you go.
Enable water plans to be revisited on a regular basis.
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A Right to Water?
The recognition of a need to pay for water reflects two important concepts:
There is a legitimate cost involved in obtaining, treating, and distributing clean, safe drinking water. Even if the water itself is free, the costs for constructing, operating, and maintaining the infrastructure must be recovered.
Charging for water helps consumers to value the water they use, and to avoid waste.
International Water Access
Ireland: Water utilities are supported by property taxes, not user fees, so there is no per-unit cost for water delivered. Water is abundant so scarcity is not much of a problem.
Qatar: This small desert nation of 1.7M people is one of the wealthiest on earth. The two main sources of water are desalination and groundwater mining. High government revenues from natural gas production are used to provide free water for all. Water levels in the aquifer are declining.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan: The government provides free treated water in the capital city.
Numerous Developing Countries: Central taps shared by whole villages are often provided for free by the government or by charities. However, Water for People and other charities have found that paying for water enhances local support for their own water utility and helps raise revenue for maintenance and operation.
South Africa: Instituted a national policy that cities would provide a free basic amount of water to their citizens. The amount was initially set at 6,000 liters per month, about the amount that a person could carry in a month of manual water collection. As sanitation services improved and more flush toilets were installed, this basic amount turned out to be insufficient. Some cities raised their free allocation to be sufficient for flushing toilets; others provided unlimited water for free. The problem was that revenues were insufficient to support operation and maintenance, and water service suffered. Now the government must rethink the free water policy.
Advantages of Water Privatization
Large private companies often have more depth and specialization of expertise than small to moderate sized municipalities.
Private companies are often run more efficiently than public ones. The profit motive encourages management to focus on success.
Private companies are not saddled with the large debt loads that are often problematic for municipal systems.
Disadvantages of Water Privatization
Corporations are inherently beholden to stockholders and investors instead of to electorates.
Corporations must make a profit and hence often charge higher rates than public utilities.
Corporations do not have the advantage of tax-free municipal bonds for raising revenue, but must borrow with normal interest rates.
The key to successful operation of a water system is good governance. Public or private, a system with well qualified, well trained, dedicated managers and staff is likely to serve its customers well. If privatization is followed, it is most likely to succeed if the contract is carefully negotiated to specify terms that result in system operation in the interest of the public. For example, the contract should clearly regulate the terms under which the contractor may raise rates.
To alleviate these hardships, communities can offer pricing structures that mitigate impacts on low-income households. The most common example is "lifeline rates," where low-income households are charged lower rates on non-discretionary water consumption (the minimum sanitary requirement, e.g., 6,000 gallons a month), and higher rates on water consumed beyond that amount.”
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Chronology
2010: The UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council approve resolutions recognizing access to water as a human right and sets forth the expectation that access to clean, safe drinking water should cost no more than 3% of household income (JHU Water Scarcity, Patterson).
1999: Privatization of Cochabamba, Bolivia’s municipal water supply; the private company increases the price of water by 35% on average and the utility forbids the collection of rainwater. Due to a series of massive social protests, the concession is terminated a few months after its implementation (Santos, 2017).
1992: An International Conference on Water and the Environment is held in Dublin, Ireland (Santos, 2017).
5 Jun, 1976: Failure of the $100M Teton Dam in Eastern Idaho as it was filling for the first time. The collapse kills 11 people and 16K livestock. The USG pays >$300M in claims related to its failure (Wiki).
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---Articles---
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Urban Growth and Water Access in Sub-Saharan Africa by Santos
Ref: Santos et al (2017). Urban growth and water access in sub-Saharan Africa: Progress, challenges, and emerging research directions. Journal of Science of the Total Environment.
For the next decade, the global water crisis remains the risk of highest concern, and ranks ahead of climate change, extreme weather events, food crises and social instability. Across the globe, nearly one in ten people is without access to an improved drinking water source. Least Developed Countries (LDCs) especially in sub- Saharan Africa (SSA) are the most affected, having disproportionately more of the global population without access to clean water than other major regions. Population growth, changing lifestyles, increasing pollution and accelerating urbanization will continue to widen the gap between the demand for water and available supply especially in urban areas, and disproportionately affect informal settlements, where the majority of SSA's urban population resides. Distribution and allocation of water will be affected by climate-induced water stresses, poor institutions, ineffective governance, and weak political will to address scarcity and mediate uncertainties in future supply.
In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there are growing concerns about the distribution and allocation of water resources, water pollution, poor institutions, ineffective governance and weak political will to address growing water scarcity.
Across the globe, 663M people are officially recognized as currently being without access to an improved drinking water source.
JMP estimates that as of 2015, 2.4B people (~1 in 3 worldwide) still lacked access to safely managed sanitation.
Currently >80% of all wastewater worldwide is estimated to go directly back into water bodies without treatment.
There are two coexisting challenges with regard to water access: first, providing access to an increasing number of urban dwellers; and secondly, addressing the maintenance of existing systems.
The population of SSA as a whole is forecasted to double by 2050, up to 2B inhabitants.
In 2040, the Urban population will exceed the rural population in SSA, and constitute 55% of the total population of the region in 2050. During this period, SSA’s urban population will certainly have tripled.
Across SSA, there will be an absolute increase in volumetric demand.
There are six water supply determinants that play an effective role in maintaining good health: quality, quantity, access (physical distance or socioeconomic and cultural dimensions of access), reliability, cost, and ease of management. These determinants are coherent with the normative criteria defined in the human right to water (and sanitation) through a UN resolution, namely: availability, physical accessibility, quality, affordability and acceptability.
In Johannesburg, the “Lifeline service” that established the first six cubic meters of water consumed as free was determined to be unfair, as it did not take into account household size.
A growing international consensus seems to favor community-based over centralized public or privatized models for their benefits including participation, empowerment, ownership, and sustainability.
Community-based WUAs in Malawi, generally achieved financial solvency and stability, generating enough surpluses to pay all or most of their past water debts within 3–5 years, and generating locally significant employment.
A holistic urban water management approach remains critical–one that focuses not only on biophysical and engineering dimensions of water but also pays sufficient attention to water governance, including politics, financing, urban planning, infrastructure, technology transfer architecture, coastal environmental management and stakeholder involvement.
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---Discussion Threads---
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Q. Water Scarcity
Q. Why is water scarcity an issue of growing importance in the world today?
Good evening class,
There’s an interesting report published annually by the World Economic Forum known as the “Global Risks Report.” It categorically lists and then qualitatively defines the severest risks facing humankind by probability and severity (which is how risk is generally measured and then mitigated). As you can imagine, the common issues such as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), Natural Disaster, Failed governance, biodiversity collapse, extreme weather events, and so on, all make the list. Year after year, without interruption, “water crises” has topped or near topped the list. The report explains:
‘Drinking water: Pollution of aquifers will be exacerbated by declines in streamflow: by the 2050s, more than 650 million people in 500 cities are projected to face declines in freshwater availability of at least 10%. As rivers and streams contain some groundwater, salination could also affect surface level fresh water.’
The book “Blue Gold” (blue of course being water) continues stating:
Global deforestation, destruction of wetlands, the dumping of pesticides and fertilizers into waterways, and global warming are all taking a terrible toll on the earth’s fragile water systems.
The effect of urbanization, industrial agriculture, deforestation, paving, infrastructure building, and dam construction are drastically changing water resource availability.
The reality of shrinking fresh water supplies, the pollution of existing sources, and the growing demand for water; it is inevitable that conflicts will arise over access.
Responsible management of the environment by governments through laws and regulations is frequently viewed as a liability that decreases international competitiveness.
Blue Gold and other books like Natural Capital by Dieter Helm offer solutions such as how to price natural ecosystems, readjusting GDP to account for things like water loss or water pollution or aquifer withdrawal, creating a “water constitution” with graduated pricing controls and more. The message from the literature is clear- water is an increasingly multi-national geo-political issue.
Access to not only water but clean water has been an ongoing struggle for humans for the majority of our history. The Greeks had Zeus as the god of Rain, the Romans Jupiter, the Sumerians had Enki. Access to water through the hydrologic cycle underpins essentially all of human history. As Dr. Patterson pointed out, the human body can go a week without food but only a few days without water- our cities, our farms, our lives are all essentially based around water access.
Water is an increasingly larger and larger issue in today’s world due to myriad factors: a growing population, land misuse (think 1930’s dust bowl or the premise for that fun film “Interstellar”), desertification, pollution, over extraction, industrial (over)use, multinational geo-political contentions such as the Ethiopian GERD, and more, all seek to impact global stability. And I have yet to mention or even consider the impact to biodiversity. Water scarcity is not only a growing issue, it is already an issue, in many parts of the world- namely the Middle East (Yemen is a prime example) and essentially all of the Saharan Africa, to call out only a few. For example, Africa, with a disproportionately large share of climate change impact continentally, is expected to have 40% of the worlds population by 2050 with continually increasing water scarcity. Although this all paints a somewhat bleak picture, I’m confident that many of the necessary controls and programs to solve this problem are underway and even ongoing and I look forward to learning more in this class.
-Eric
References
Maude Barlow (7 Jan, 2014). Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Global Theft of the Worlds Water. The New Press.
World Economic Forum (2019). The Global Risks Report.
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Q. Water & Government
Q. This week’s assignment is Step 5 on the Research and Writing Project: Does solving the problem require any changes to existing governance related to this issue? If so, what types of change are needed, and at what level of government. If not, explain why, and describe a little about what types of changes outside of governance might be needed.
My topic covers the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Western Ethiopia and its impact on water scarcity downstream in both Sudan and Egypt.
As presented in the course this week, governance is directly tied to water scarcity; that is, both poor and effective governance can have dramatically disparate outcomes on their populations and, unfortunately, Ethiopia is a classic example of poor water governance. As an example, the world renown Ethiopian Famine of the Mid-1980’s was a perfect storm of poor governance mixed with a changing climate. In this case, the Ethiopian DERG (committee), which overthrew Ethiopian President Halie Selassie, decreed Socialism and land reform in December of 1974. The DERG set prices and dictated mandatory food quotas that were protested wholesale throughout the country. The DERG responded with repression and violence, which mixed with its pivot from democratic principles towards socialist economic policies, pushed many Western donors from continuing financial aid. The US, for example, under President Jimmy Carter was one of the first to condemn Ethiopia and subsequently suspended US AID money; many European nations followed. In similar fashion to China’s Great Leap Forward or the Soviet Union’s Collectivization, government policy mixed with climactic disaster in Ethiopia killed millions. In this case, drought struck in the early to mid 1980’s when the ‘Belg’ (intense spring rains) failed and the government continued demanding farmers to fill food quotas, under both threat of and actual violence. Thus, farmers were forced to provide crops to government officials with little relation to environmental agricultural yield potential. Many farmers at this time even sold property in order to purchase to crops with which to then give back to the government. At the same time, Ethiopia was fighting separatist and nationalist movements in both Wollo and Tigray (the same Tigray that Ethiopia is at war with today), which were both the hardest hit regions of the famine. It’s no wonder that instability breeds violence and vice versa. Approximately a million people died between 1983-1985 and one government foreign minister, Tibebu Bikele was even quoted as stating “food (and water) is a major element in our strategy against the secessionists.”
Of course, it’s difficult to compare the government policy of one administration nearly 40 years ago to that of todays, and many important, both positive and negative, differences are clear. Ethiopia, amazingly, is still fighting in Tigray and Wollo and as Pearce points out, ‘only 27% of the country’s population has access to safe drinking water.’ In similar fashion to US President Jimmy Carter’s 1977 condemnation of Ethiopia, the nation is a known Human Rights Violator (HRV) which directly cancels any/all US AID, and that of many other nations as well, due to legislation known as the Leahy Amendment, in which the US Government does not provide aid to HRV+ governments. Furthermore, Ethiopia undertook construction of the GERD with neither consultation of downstream nations nor even an environmental impact assessment (EIA), the latter of which, although important, may be a moot point, as any company contracted to conduct an EIA would be remiss not to approve the project (as Pearce points out). In the case of the GERD, the greatest opposition to Ethiopia’s project is Egypt, who even UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali stated “Egypt would go to war to stop a dam on the Nile in Ethiopia.” For a renowned leader of peace throughout the world, this was definitely a provocative statement. Downstream Egypt is reliant on water for their economy, agriculture, drinking, and energy, of which Ethiopia’s Blue Nile supplies the vast majority of water (>80%). The idea of economic water scarcity in Egypt due to willful manipulation of the geopolitics in upstream Ethiopia is little tolerated downstream and Egypt has even spoken openly about destroying the GERD, of which they would be required to do through neighboring Sudan- a geopolitical perfect storm for sure.
Ethiopia’s poor governance in water scarcity is marked by armed conflict- of which water has the capacity to be (and has historically been) used as a tool of war, corruption, which is ubiquitous throughout the country, poor planning, particularly with neighboring nations, incompetence in ensuring international aid, and a focus on pork-barrel projects to appease voters, among others. I don’t intend on painting this bleak picture. Ethiopia’s GERD is a direct manifestation of its leaders listening to the will of the people and paying attention to the countries long term societal needs, primarily in reducing energy dependence and water scarcity. Although there’s a way to go, the GERD may provide a short-midterm stopgap for Ethiopia in order to grow economically in an Environmental Kuznets Curve style scenario. The best way forward for Ethiopia may be as follows:
Conduct a partisan led Environmental Impact Assessment of the GERD, most importantly with recommendations as to diplomacy, economics, and environmental recommendations; ideally done by an AU or UN led panel. The idea here being to provide best recommendations as to its operations and NOT recommendations as to its destruction.
Sit down with downstream neighbors Sudan and Egypt and renegotiate a Nile Watershed Agreement, as the present 1959 agreement established by the UK, when they were colonial lead of both Sudan and Egypt, failed to even mention Ethiopia.
Conduct periodic reviews of Blue Nile Water in similar fashion to precedent agreements existing in Texas, Australia, the CO River, and more.
-Eric Bond
References
Fred Pearce (28 Aug, 2018). When the Rivers Run Dry. Beacon Press.
Martin Meredith (6 Sep, 2011). Fate of Africa. Public Affairs.
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Q. Richter’s Principles
Q. This week’s assignment is step 6 of the Research and Writing Project, and gives you an opportunity to apply the information from the lecture and the reading. Consider each of Richter’s 7 principles and explain whether each principle could be applied to help solve the problem. For those potential applications, explain a little about how the principle could be applied.
My topic covers the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Western Ethiopia and its impact on downstream water scarcity in both Sudan and Egypt.
Richter’s 7 principles for water management represent a straightforward model for planning, implementation, and assessment of an ecological community’s water needs. Guiding these principles are several fundamental assumptions, namely: a) to the maximum extent possible, water will remain inside its watershed of origin, b) the ecological world will be included, even prioritized (as in the case of Australia’s Murray Watershed), and c) that humanity- be it individuals, businesses, nations, or otherwise, will respect the water management process. Unfortunately, these are very constraining assumptions and are not as pragmatic as one might think, therefore an 8th principle may be required to account for the tragedy of the commons, particularly in East Africa’s Nile Watershed where corruption is high, infrastructure is weak, and tens of millions across several countries are prone to both economic and physical water scarcity.
Ethiopia’s construction of the GERD can be applied to Richter’s Seven Principles as follows:
1. Build a shared vision for your community’s water future.
The GERD is a gravity dam in Ethiopia’s Western Highlands that will make Ethiopia energy independent while drastically reducing water scarcity throughout the country. For a developing nation prone to periodic drought, this is a panacea of sorts for solving several wicked problems including water scarcity, energy dependence, drought resilience, agriculture yield, and more; all requisite for improving HDI and thus, the livelihoods of Ethiopian citizens. As suggested by the aforementioned tragedy of the commons, Ethiopia has undertaken the GERD project without consulting its downstream neighbors- both Sudan and Egypt, who are heavily reliant on Nile river water, of which Ethiopia’s Blue Nile accounts for more than 80% of annual flow. Thus, Ethiopia has created a shared vision for its community’s water future, yet it has done so without discussion with either of its downstream neighbors. Application of this principle would be a re-evaluation of previous Nile Watershed agreements (both 1935 and 1959) which, strangely, do not even mention Ethiopia. The ideal outcome would be general concurrence as to the vision of the Blue Nile and possibly even the Nile proper in total (including the White Nile) in which Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt share their water goals and agree to an updated Blue Nile Water agreement that accounts for short, midterm, and long-term water and energy requirements while ensuring, sadly secondarily (there goes my first assumption), the ecological reserve of the Nile watershed.
2. Set Limits on Total Consumptive Use of Water.
In this case, Principle 2 is requisite prior to discussion of principle 1; due to the transnational geopolitics of the GERD, Ethiopia’s claim to prior appropriation is a non-starter (as it seemingly should be for any transnational watershed issues). The Blue Nile supports water, agriculture, and energy for tens of millions in Eastern and Sub-Saharan Africa and any discussion as to a shared vision for future water use will BEGIN with a discussion of national needs for residential, industrial, agricultural, energy, and ecological water needs. Fortunately, there are myriad case studies to draw upon- the Colorado in the US SW, the Mississippi in the US Midwest, the Rhine in Central Europe, the Murray-Darling in Australia, and more. Estimating flow by consumptive requirements may look as follows:
Consumptive use calculations begin with populations for Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt, and are pro-rated for percentage of river flow. That is, Ethiopia’s 112.1 million people, Sudan’s 43 million people, and Egypt’s 101 million people have differing needs based on population and percentage of Blue Nile river flow. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Assuming an average Blue Nile River Flow of 50 billion cubic meters (1915-2014 annual average) for some cumulative 256million people, as a start, Ethiopia’s allotment (which is wholly reliant on Nile river flow relative to both Sudan and Egypt), would receive, at a minimum, 44% of River flow (amazingly this represents a 44% increase from previous Nile watershed agreements), with Sudan receiving less than 17%, and Egypt just under 40%. In reality, the White Nile combines in Sudan, thus allotments in both Sudan and Egypt would be required to account for this surplus of water (~20% of the Nile’s flow). Complicating this arithmetic further, differences in HDI, industrial needs, agriculture needs, additional water sources, and ecological requirements will need to be factored in, among many others. Of utmost concern for Egypt, for example, is ensuring that the turbines of the Aswan High Dam continue rotating, and that farmers in Egypt’s Nile River Valley are able to grow crops unhindered by the GERD. A tangential yet, possibly, hierarchical consideration is the ecological reserve. Fortunately, there is precedence here- the Colorado uses (italics are mine as it HAS used and does not periodically use) river pulses while the Murray-Darling allots a percentage to nature (~2.1% derived by the Living Murray initiative and average water flow), which would account for some one billion cubic meters of Nile river flow, reducing population consumptive requirements by a couple percent per nation.
Principle Two could be met with the GERD with some combination of ensuring basic human needs and ecosystems are protected, and then introducing a cap and flex on the remainder. Lastly, I’d be remiss not to point out that this and step one are, arguably, both the most important and the most difficult.
3. Allocate a specific volume to each user, then monitor and enforce.
This is a tough one; take three developing nations with low HDI’s, massive poverty, sporadic droughts, instability, historically high corruption, and a large wealth gap, and attempt to allocate water volume by user. Beginning with the allocation of water per country as calculated above, the issues (of which they are myriad), then become monitoring and enforcement. Ethiopia recently submitted its National Adaptation Plan (NAP) draft with the UN and the US Embassy was among the first to point out its inability to either monitor or enforce its NAP goals. Although I’ve yet to read Sudan or Egypt’s NAP’s, I can only imagine similar obstacles. Whether charged by local law enforcement or a government agency, any quantitative allocation is superfluous without the monitoring and enforcement aspect of policy. As long as Principles one and two (and my assumptions) are met with the GERD between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt, then all users throughout the watershed would have not only access high security water entitlements, but much more. In this principle, each nation will be required to enforce against the tragedy of the commons. Ethiopia could do this through revenue generated by the GERD and both Sudan and Egypt could do this through revenues generated through increased stability due to both an updated watershed agreement and treaties with its neighbors.
4. Invest in Water conservation to its maximum potential.
Many people in the Blue Nile nations impacted by the GERD practice the principle of water conservation out of necessity on a daily basis. According to the UN FAO, 2016 total water withdrawal across sectors per capita in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia came out to 910.6, 714.1, and 106.1 cubic meters per capita, respectively, of which the vast majority of water consumed was in the form of agriculture. In this sector, water conservation has a large role to play. Technology including drip irrigation and infrastructure upgrades to reduce loss including the farming of less water thirsty crops could play leading roles in reducing water consumption. Egypt, for example, has a large cotton and corn industry reliant on Nile River water, both of which require an excess of water. Egypt, the heaviest water user of the three, and Sudan could (should) look towards supply augmentation in the form of desalinization, similar to their northwestern neighbor, Israel. Unfortunately, all of these options come with HEAVY upfront costs which the US, EU, World Bank, IMF and other developed nations have the capacity to contribute. Stability in the area is in world economic interests and developed nations around the world already pour billions annually into the region for AID programs; some of which could be diverted for long term water infrastructure and conservation programs.
5. Enable Trading of Water Entitlements.
Principle Five has a lot of potential in the Nile River Valley. The GERD created the Ethiopian Grand Reservoir in the Ethiopian Highlands, flooding a large area in a V-shaped valley high in the mountains where cloud cover is nearly constant and relatively little water is lost in the humid, shaded mountain environment. Conversely, Sudan, and worse yet, Egypt lose massive amounts of water to evaporation daily. According to Egyptian Hydrologists as noted by Pearce, the water in the reservoir behind Egypt’s Aswan High Dam loses between 25%- 40% of river flow annually from evaporation alone! An updated Nile watershed agreement (principle one) with consumptive limits (principle 2) and allocated volumes (principle 3) could enable both Egypt and Sudan to store and/or purchase excess water from the relatively lesser evaporation prone grand Ethiopian Reservoir. This would not only reduce water loss in the Egyptian Aswan Reservoir, it would increase stability in the region through increase geopolitical ties.
6. If too much water is being consumptively used, subsidize reductions in consumption.
Principle 6 and Principle 4 go hand in hand in regards water scarcity from the GERD. As the vast majority of Nile River Water is used for agriculture, subsidizing reductions in developing nations in historically drought prone areas would be difficult, to say the least. As in principle 4, the developed world could potentially play a role in reducing water consumption through loans or infrastructure finance programs in order to introduce drip irrigation systems, hybrid crops, or exploring supply augmentation. One area where government subsidies may help, as explained in principle four, is in the transition to relatively lesser water prone crops.
7. Learn from mistakes or better ideas, and adjust as you go.
Fundamental to any long-term agreement to Blue Nile River Water Scarcity and the GERD is the continual re-assessment of the previous principles. Similar to the Texas Water Development Board, a future Nile River Watershed Agreement should enable the previous six principles to be revisited on a periodic basis. Drought and famine strike the Nile watershed region quite often and a periodic review should take this cycle into account. Furthermore, a periodic re-assessment MUST be monitorable and enforceable (as in principle 3) and ideally an external authority- be it the African Union (AU) or the United Nations (UN) would oversee this process; in fact the UN or the AU in a subordinate role may be the correct body for re-assessing and enforcing all large transnational water projects.
-Eric Bond
References
· Fred Pearce (28 Aug, 2018). When the Rivers Run Dry. Beacon Press.
· Martin Meredith (6 Sep, 2011). Fate of Africa. Public Affairs.
· Brian Richter (16 May, 2014). Chasing Water: A Guide for Moving from Scarcity to Sustainability.
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---GERD---
· “Many missteps in the right direction.”
Overview (Eric Bond)
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Africa's largest, is Ethiopia's panacea to building both capacity and resilience to a host of wicked problems impacting the country, including economic development, water scarcity, famine, standard of living, quality of life, energy dependence, and much more. The countries human development has been stalled frequently due to historic and sporadic cycles of famine and drought and the GERD will, in a sense, flip the script, enabling agriculture, energy, and water access throughout the region. In theory, farmers will begin to have reliable access to water, energy will flow to the most remote of villages, and Ethiopia will go from a net importer of Energy and Food to a net exporter of both. This is expected to have cascading effects such as longer life expectancy, higher trust in government, increased economic output, national pride, and, eventually, regional partnerships. For the first time in the countries history, Ethiopians as a whole may have their long term physiological needs met, empowering them to move higher towards psychological development and, later down the road, self-fulfillment.
Of course, outside Ethiopia is another story entirely; while the GERD is great for Ethiopia, it has the potential to disrupt energy availability in Cairo, decrease economic output from farms reliant on the Nile's flow from Khartoum to Alexandria, and potentially increase mistrust and instability in the region. Egypt, and to a lesser extent, Sudan, oppose the construction of the GERD, and both nations have left open the possibility for hostile action in the case that Ethiopia unilaterally continues with construction. These repeated warnings may all be for naught, however, as Ethiopia is nearing completion of construction and anything less than near term future Ethiopian operation of the dam is essentially a non-sequitur. Presently there is no shared vision, no quantifiable limit to water consumption and diversion, very limited allocation and monitoring of the rivers surface water, no trans-regional water trading scheme, no subsidization of water use reductions, and no plan in place with which to re-assess and build better. With the exception of conservation, which is generally done only by necessity in the region, Richter would most likely fail the GERD due to its utter lack of trans-regional Nile river water planning per his scorecard.
As of this week, Ethiopia is expected to move forward unilaterally with another fill of the GERDs reservoir including additional construction to the Dams concrete wall, with the intent of starting power production in less than a month! That is, Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia will HAVE to come together to revisit and plan a regional Nile River Water Agreement that includes a shared vision between the three countries with schemes for setting limits, monitoring use, conserving, trading, and re-assessing. Although uncertainty and disagreement abound in the short term, a future agreement, of which I, for one, am optimistic, will bring the three countries closer together through a trans-regional Nile River Compact with net positive impacts on the quarter billion people that rely on the worlds largest river system for their lives and livelihoods.
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Why Ethiopia and Sudan Have Fallen out over al- Fashaga by BBC
Ref: Alex De Waal (3 Jan, 2021). Why Ethiopia and Sudan have fallen out over al-Fashaga. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55476831
Al-Fashaga: Disputed Sudan- Ethiopia border region near Tigray where many Amharic Ethiopians live.
Leaders: Abdul Fattah al-Sisi (Egypt), Abiy (Ethiopia), Hamdok (Sudan).
Desires
Egypt: GERD is threat to Nile Water and historic agreements.
Sudan: GERD is good for flood control, increased irrigation, and cheaper electricity.
Ethiopia: GERD is essential source for hydroelectric power requisite for economic development.
Chronology
2008: Ethiopia and Sudan agree to a soft border deal; Ethiopia acknowledges the legal boundary with Sudan while Sudan permits Ethiopians to live in al-Fashaga undisturbed.
2018: The Ethiopian TPLF is removed from power, ethnic Amhara leaders take over.
Oct, 2019: Sochi talks; Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia agree to US Mediation on the GERD. Sudan sides with Egypt hoping for the US to lift financial sanctions on the 1993 designation of Sudan as a state sponsor of terror (WTC attacks). Ethiopia rejects proposals and US suspends aid to Ethiopia.
2020: Sudanese Armed Forces drive back Ethiopian Peoples Defense Forces and force Ethiopian villagers in al-Fashaga to evacuate.
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The Dam that Broken Open an Ethiopia-Egypt Dispute by Carnegie
Ref: Sherif Mohyeldeen (12 Feb, 2021). The Dam That Broke Open an Ethiopia-Egypt Dispute. Carnegie Middle East Center. https://carnegie-mec.org/2021/02/12/dam-that-broke-open-ethiopia-egypt-dispute-pub-83867
Desires
Egypt
Fears for its water security.
Accuses Ethiopia of Intransigence in refusing to submit to impact studies and international monitoring.
Asks that the initial filling not proceed too quickly (12-21 years) to prevent Egy water scarcity (Eth insists on doing it in 6 years in order to increase electrical capacity as more than half of Eth population is without electricity).
Egypt expects to face water scarcity by 2025.
Sudan
Potential to play a role as mediary.
Concerned about how much water will flow to the Roseires.
Stands to benefit from the cheaper electricity the dam will generate, the easier irrigation it will enable, and the likelihood of less flooding.
Sudan rests in between both Eth and Egypt.
Sudan is actively trying to affect a break with its recent past as a pariah state.
Border Dispute with Eth over Fashaga (Eth acknowledges that Fashaga falls within Sudanese Territory but seeks recognition of the rights of its inhabitants, most of whom belong to the ethnic Amhara community whose national identity is intertwined with that of Eth).
Ethiopia
Maintains that the matter is an open-and-shut case of Ethiopian Sovereignty.
Stalled on allowing an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) of the dam (required under international law).
Will not abandon the Amhara of Fashaga.
Blue Nile: Supplies 80% of the Nile River Flow.
Chronology
1959: The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty for the Nile River is signed; Egypt is guaranteed 55.5B m3 and Sudan is guaranteed 18.5B m3. Ethiopia isn’t even mentioned.
Apr, 2011: Construction of the GERD begins.
2012: Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan agree to charge an international panel of experts with studying the potential impact of the GERD.
Mar, 2015: Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan sign the Declaration of Principles (DoP) in Khartoum in which Ethiopia agrees to conduct an ESIA, which it later refuses to do.
Feb, 2020: Egypt calls on the UNSC to condemn the actions of Ethiopia for not signing the DoP.
Jun, 2020: Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry announces that, due to Ethiopia’s obstinacy in reaching a negotiated settlement, Egypt was now considering “other options” for resolving the dispute.
Jul, 2020: Ethiopia begins filling its Grand Ethiopian reservoir.
Sep, 2020: Blue Nile flooding lays waste to nearly one third of the countries cultivated land and affects about 3M people, ~100 people die.
Oct, 2020: POTUS Trump tells Sudanese PM Abdalla Hamdok that “Egypt might end up blowing the GERD.”
2022: Commencement of GERD operations.
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The Nile River Basin by Deconinck
Ref: Stefan Deconinck (7 Apr, 2021). The Nile River Basin. On the geopolitics of water scarcity. Waternet. https://www.waternet.be/nile
Nile River
Total Length: 6695km
Total Basin Area Discharge: 3,200,000 m3/yr subdivided into ten different basins with two main branches (white and blue Niles)
Blue Nile: Accounts for 85% of total annual discharge of the Nile Basin.
White Nile: Accounts for 15% of the annual discharge.
At Khartoum, the White Nile + Blue Nile = Mightly Nile.
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Understanding and Managing New Risks on the Nile with the GERD by Wheeler
Ref: Wheeler et al (16 Oct, 2020). Understanding and managing new risks on the Nile with the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Nature Communications, Article #5222. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19089-x
The new normal (GERD Operations) will benefit Ethiopia and Sudan without significantly affecting water users in Egypt.
Two large dams—the GERD and the High Aswan Dam (HAD)—in two countries, Ethiopia and Egypt, will coexist on a single river—the Nile—with no specific agreement yet on water sharing or reservoir operations.
Heavy rainfall over Ethiopia from June through September creates highly seasonal flows in the Blue Nile and Atbara tributaries.
High Aswan Dam (HAD): Stores ~162Bcm. Sediment accumulation has reduced the capacity by ~7 bcm, with 46% deposited in the live storage. The primary purpose of the HAD has been to meet Egypt’s agricultural, municipal, and industrial water requirements through regular annual releases of 55.5Bcm.
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD): Expected to annually generate ~16TWh of energy; the largest hydroelectric power generation facility yin Africa and the 5th largest in the world. The GERD reservoir will have a total store of 74Bcm, 59Bcm active, or nearly 1.2x the average annual flow of the Blue Nile at the dam site.
GERD ERAs and contentions:
Era 1: Filling the GERD Reservoir
Reservoir levels in the HAD will decrease while Ethiopia impounds water.
Downstream consequences of filling the GERD are difficult to assess because they will depend on six key factors: (1) rainfall and flow in the basin during filling; (2) how quickly Ethiopia fills the GERD Reservoir; (3) how hydropower is generated at the GERD, which, in turn, depends on developments in the regional power grid; (4) how the GERD Reservoir filling influences Sudan’s withdrawals; (5) the initial storage level in the HAD Reservoir (as of 24 August 2020, it was nearly full at 178.4 masl); and (6) how the HAD is operated during the filling period.
The GERD Reservoir transitions from empty to full in five years and subsequently maintains a high, stable release pattern over the remainder of the simulation period. The pool elevation of the HAD never falls below 60 bcm and the storage of the HAD Reservoir recovers quickly. Egypt would not need to invoke the HAD Drought Management Policy (DMP) which would impose restrictions on releases. During these wet conditions, Egypt can release 55.5 bcm in every year of the simulation.
Filling the GERD reservoir first is likely to cause great concern, unless firm guarantees are in place that water will be released.
Era 2: After filling the GERD reservoir (reaches full supply level- fsl)
Net evaporation losses from the GERD Reservoir will average ~1.7Bcm per year and will not fluctuate much from year to year.
For an average 20-year sequence that is broadly representative of typical low and high years (1934–1953), the GERD is able to maintain steady releases over time, and storage never falls to the minimum operating level of 18.4Bcm (595 masl). Moreover, the GERD buffers the variability in HAD Reservoir storage relative to the case without the GERD, resulting in lower peaks and periods of higher minimum storage. The HAD Reservoir remains above 60Bcm of storage, and Egypt’s DMP is never deployed.
Sudan will clearly be better off in Era 2 because GERD operations will smooth Blue Nile flows, eliminating flood losses, increasing hydropower generation, decreasing sediment load to the reservoirs and canals, and, most importantly, increasing water for summer irrigation in the Gezira Scheme and other irrigated areas along the Blue Nile.
Era 3: Begins when a sequence of very low flows occurs in the Nile Basin
Simulate the consequences of the 1972–1987 series of low flows.
At the beginning of a multi-year drought, the Eastern Nile riparian’s should have water stored in both the GERD and HAD Reservoirs, which can be used to mitigate shortages. During a drought, the GERD Reservoir would be drawn down in an effort to continue generating hydropower. Any water released in excess of that which is required for power generation would come at a cost to Ethiopia by foregoing the generation of power in the future. Ethiopia could release water downstream until the GERD Reservoir reached the minimum operating level of 595 masl (or 565 masl if only low-level turbines remained in use).
The most basic strategy to manage a drought would be to guarantee a minimum annual release from the GERD, or alternatively, a firm power production contract from the GERD.
Assumption that Ethiopia would continue to operate the GERD to deliver 1600 MW of power whenever possible, Sudan would operate reservoirs to meet its own irrigation and energy generation needs, and Egypt would invoke its current DMP as necessary.
As the multi-year drought of the 1970s and 1980s begins, storage in both the HAD and GERD Reservoirs falls quickly. During the drought onset, storage in the HAD Reservoir, however, remains higher than it would have been if the GERD had not been built, causing decreased water deficits to Egypt and increased water availability. Because the GERD releases (for hydropower production) help to boost Nile flows, Egypt experiences four years of reduced shortages until both reservoirs are near their minimum operating level
Resolution
There is a need for cooperation and agreement, together with a basin-wide, data-sharing platform for coordinated planning, transparent information exchange, and trust building.
During the implementation of such measures, policy makers will need to actively engage with the press and social media to correct misperceptions as they arise and reassure the public that the management plan will be effective and fair.
Agreements should specify how the reduced flow of the Nile will be shared when storage is depleted in both reservoirs, and will need to balance power generation and consumptive use. At least as challenging will be the issue of how quickly and in what sequence the HAD and GERD Reservoirs should be refilled. To maintain confidence that proper planning has taken place, coordinated communications with the media and public in all riparian countries will be important.
Chronology
1959: Egypt and Sudan sign an “Agreement for the Full Utilization of Nile Waters.”
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