Nile River

It is time for Ethiopia and the Nile basin countries to straighten the facts and unmask the flagrant injustice and correct the hegemonic Egyptian narrative. For one, the Nile water is a resource and wealth for the over 500 million people living in and around the river system. In Ethiopia, where about 86 percent of the Blue Nile water originates, it is a lifeline for more than 40 million people who eke out a living in the basin areas. The river also covers 63 percent of land in Sudan and provides 77 percent of fresh water for more than 45million people. Hence, no country should have an exclusive right to the Nile’s water on the basis of obsolete colonial treaties.

The Egyptian stranglehold on the Nile waters is unacceptable. Egypt has twice ignored protests from upper riparian countries when it built the Aswan High Dam, and two other colossal projects, namely the Toshka and Al-slam canals that took the Nile water from its natural course in contravention of established norms. Yet, Cairo seeks to dictate what other riparian states can and can’t do with the Nile waters. Basin countries must now come together anew to challenge this hypocrisy and seek a judicious and equitable use of the Nile waters.

Egypt often points to its projected population growth to assert its exclusive use of the river Nile. However, all basin countries, including Ethiopia, can make an equally compelling argument given their similar or even more pronounced population explosions. Ethiopia and Egypt are also arguably more heavily dependent on the Nile river than any other basin country and hence there should not be an exclusive case to make than cooperation for fair and equitable sharing of the Nile water.

According to reliable scholars and scientific studies, Egypt is more endowed than Ethiopia with groundwater resources. For example, from the Nubian aquifer alone, Egypt can harness some 150,000 BCM of water. By contrast, Ethiopia has only an available surface water in the order of 122 BCM, 70 percent of which is generated in the Nile basin. The studies further indicate that Egypt can produce a fresh water in the order of 5250 BCM only if 100 meter thickness of the ground water storage is utilized. In addition to this, unlike landlocked Ethiopia, Egypt could access additional water resources through desalination from its huge coastline, using advanced and yet cheaper technology. Therefore, an efficient way of water use coupled with reduction of wastages through traditional agricultural and urban practices would enhance the available water resource in Egypt as well as other riparian countries.

The High Dam in Aswan

For many decades, Egyptians had sought ways to reduce their dependence on a river whose flow was dangerously erratic. There were years of destructive floods and years too dry to sustain the millions of rural Egyptians’ livelihoods. Variable amounts of rainfall to Ethiopia cause stunning differences in the amount of flooding seen farther down the course of the Nile. In a "lean year," such as 1913-1914, 12 billion cubic meters of flood water swelled the river. A "fat year," such as 1878-79, saw the level of the river increase by 155 billion cubic meters of water.

With Aswan high dam allowed Egypt to expand the area under irrigation by a third. Egyptian farmers could plant two crops a year. By 1970 when the dam was completed, the 2,100MW of power it generated supplied more than half of Egypt’s electricity needs. This history makes Egypt’s complaints about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam look a little hypocritical. Ethiopia is emulating what Egypt did 60 years ago to boost its national development. Egypt’s most recent complaint is that, by filling the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam too fast, Ethiopia will deprive Egypt of essential water. Currently, Ethiopia proposes to fill the dam in four to seven years. But Egypt filled the Aswan High Dam, which stores three times as much water as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, in just 6 years.

And Ethiopia’s dam could actually help Egypt save water. The guaranteed flow will allow Egypt to keep the Aswan Dam’s levels lower. This will reduce evaporation, through which the dam loses around 10% of the river’s water. Now that the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has begun, Egypt will have to recognise the right of the upstream countries to use some of the water that flows from their lands.

But unfortunately, Egypt’s official position has encouraged a bellicose populist nationalism that will be hard to calm. And the military rulers will have to explain why they failed to stop what they had said was a threat to the nation’s very survival. When Nasser took control of the Suez Canal he blocked Israeli ships from using it. That action, rather than the construction of the High Dam, is what led to the 1967 and 1973 wars with Israel and to continued regional conflicts.

If history repeats itself, it is likely that attention will shift from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam to other political problems that Egypt faces. Meanwhile Sudan, placed between the new Ethiopian dam and Egypt, will benefit from expanded irrigation and some of the dam’s cheap electricity. Ethiopia will develop more of its water resources for agriculture. The dam’s electricity will power the Addis Ababa metro and the industry it hopes to attract.

So water and the Renaissance Dam, rather than becoming a cause for war, may yet be a source of peace and progress, as the Aswan High Dam has proved to be.

Nile River Problems with the Aswan Dam

The 1959 Water Agreement divided the Nile waters as, Egypt  - 55.5 BCM,  Sudan - 18.5 BCM,  Evaporation - 10.0 BCM, Ethiopia - Nothing and the Total - 84.0 BCM (Average flow 1912-1959). Oddly enough, the Ethiopians, in whose country the Blue Nile begins, were left out of the 1959 agreement entirely. About 95% of Egypt's population lives within twelve miles of the river. Following completion of the dam there have been extensive problems, ironically caused in part because the annual flood no longer occurs. 

Agriculture

Agriculture in the delta has traditionally benefited from the water and silt deposited by the flood, which comes from eroding basalt lava in the Ethiopian highlands. This silt made the Nile delta one of the richest agricultural areas in the world and the basis of one of the most ancient human civilizations. Irrigation and more intensive farming, combined with inadequate drainage, has created swamps. The rise in water tables has led to accumulation of harmful salts, fertilizers, and pesticides in the upper layers of the soil. Farmers have been forced to use about a million tons of artificial fertilizer as a substitute for the nutrients that no longer fill the flood plain.

Poor drainage of the newly irrigated lands has led to soil saturation and increased salinity. Over half of Egypt's farmland is now rated medium to poor in quality. The high cost of developing drainage systems is the main problem, and Egypt lacks hard foreign investment currency. The water table has risen since the dam was built, increasing the danger of fertilizer and other agricultural waste products seeping into the river, which is the main source of drinking water for the local population. Why would the water table rise? All soil is permeable, so water will always leak out of the lake. The lake essentially forces water into the surrounding soils when it is full, and then water can flow back into the lake when it is low.

Increased diseases

The parasitic disease schistosomiasis has been associated with the stagnant water of the fields and the reservoir. Some studies indicate that the number of individuals affected has increased since the opening of the High Dam. Recall from the Theroux reading (National Geographic) that schistosomiasis has been present in the region for thousands of years, but the reservoir is a huge breeding ground.In some areas, the building of the Aswan dam caused an increased occurrence of schistosomiasis among the population -- from 21% to almost 100%. Similarly, the first cases of malaria in northern Africa happened after establishment of Lake Nasser. Mosquitoes need shallow stagnant water to breed, and the lakeshore is the perfect environment. The recent identification of West Nile virus also indicates a water-bred and mosquito-borne disease that would not flourish if Lake Nasser had not been built.

Changes to the Egyptian fishing industry

One good aspect of the lake was to be its contribution to a new Egyptian fishing industry. However, weeds flourished in the reservoir, causing problems for the dam and the generators. Five years after the dam was built, two thousand fishermen managed to catch 3,628 tons annually, while the catch was expected to be around 20,000 tons. Ten years later the catch had dropped to 907 tons, and in 1978 the fisheries were so poor that only a small part of the population was able to live off fishing.

The effect of the dam on the Mediterranean fishing industry was more dramatic. The silt and sediments normally carried by the river contain important minerals and nutrients for fisheries in the sea at the river mouth. Unlike more fertile, nutrient-rich seas, such as the North Sea and the Arabian Sea, the Mediterranean is noted for its nutrient-poor waters that contribute to a low level of primary productivity. Primary productivity is the creation of organic matter through photosynthesis by unicellular organisms called phytoplankton. In the Mediterranean Sea, primary productivity is unusually low for several reasons. The circulation of the sea brings low-nutrient water from the North Atlantic through the Strait of Gibraltar, and allows nutrient-rich bottom water to exit the sea through the same opening. The arid climate of the region and the low levels of nutrient-rich river runoff also contribute to the low productivity of the Mediterranean.

Before the High Dam was built, fifty percent of the Nile flow drained into the Mediterranean. During an average flood, the total discharge of nutrient salts was estimated to be approximately 5,500 tons of phosphate and 280,000 tons of silicate. The nutrient-rich floodwater, or Nile Stream, was ~15 kilometers wide; it extended along the Egyptian coast and was detected off the Israeli coast and sometimes off southern Turkey.

The decrease in fertility of the southeastern Mediterranean waters caused by the High Dam has had a catastrophic effect on marine fisheries. The average fish catch declined from nearly 35,000 tons in 1962 and 1963 to less than one-fourth of this catch in 1969. Hardest hit was the sardine fishery: from a total of 18,000 tons in 1962, a mere 460 and 600 tons of sardine were landed in 1968 and 1969. The shrimp fishery also took a heavy toll as the catch decreased from 8,300 tons in 1963 to 1,128 tons in 1969.

Erosion of the Delta 

The reduced supply of silt and sediment from the annual flood has caused heavy erosion in the Nile Delta and as far away as Israel. The erosion, coupled with normal compaction of deltaic sediments, has decreased the inhabitable land on the Delta for the first time in over 10,000 years. The lack of silt reaching the Delta has made for a different set of problems farther upriver as well. The silt now gets trapped behind the Aswan Dam, where it settles out of the water and falls in thick layers on the floor of Lake Nasser. As a result, the reservoir becomes smaller each year, and is less able to handle the water and electricity-generation needs of the nation.

The Jonglei Canal 

Where can more water be found? Ironically, the waters of the White Nile in southern Sudan likely hold the key to the economies of both Egypt and the Sudan (see maps below).

In southern Sudan, the flat topography has created a vast swamp known as the Sudd--a huge area where the White Nile meanders towards Malakal. The Sudd covers about 6,370 square miles in the dry winter months and roughly doubles in area during the summer rains. The White Nile gets stalled in the Sudd, and about 17 BCM of water is lost through evaporation and transpiration. The idea of digging a canal through the Sudd in order to speed flow of the water is a current political issue, but proposals for the Jonglei Canal, and other major Nile Basin projects, go back generations.

The digging of the Jonglei Canal began in 1978. A famous (no kidding) excavating machine known as the "Bucketwheel" was brought in from Pakistan, where it had dug a 101-km canal between the Indus and Jhelum rivers. Sudanese hydrologist Yahia Abdel Magid refurbished the Bucketwheel and brought it to Sudan. It is the largest excavator in the world, weighing over 2,100 tons. It has 12 giant buckets (3 cubic meters each) hung on a circular wheel (12.5 meters in diameter) which dig earth, then dump it onto a transmission belt, which deposits it on the bank. At full speed, the Bucketwheel can excavate 2 km a week but requires (10,000 gallons) of gasoline per 24 hours.

The Jonglei Canal project was considered one of the most important integration projects between Egypt and Sudan. The project was designed to make full use of the Nile, promote human and economic development in isolated regions, and boost agricultural development in both countries. In 1983, work was suspended as a result of the Sudanese civil war, and a missile launched by an unknown source destroyed the Bucketwheel. As a result, only the northern 180 km of the 360-km planned manmade channel is completed. Worse yet, the completed portion of the Jonglei Canal is drying out and falling apart.

Despite the possible benefits of having more irrigated farmland, the canal could have a devastating effect on the swampland environment and the people who live there. For example, draining water from the Sudd would reduce the swamp area by an estimated 36%, reducing the mosquito habitat (good), but also reducing the wetlands appropriate for grazing and wildlife habitat. Roughly two million people live in the area, and their livelihoods would be altered. Today they are dominantly semi-nomadic and move homes and livestock throughout the year. Land that has been under water for more than 20 years could be reclaimed, providing ideal ground for breeding cattle, while the canal itself would have provided new opportunities for fishing.