The Potential Impacts of the GERD During Drought

 

Now that I’ve discussed the opinions of all three countries, I will look at the potential outcome for Egypt and Sudan given a drought with the GERD. It is important to note that the simulation of this occurring is dependent on many key factors that are difficult to predict, such as rainfall and flow of the water in the basin after the reservoir is full.

The article I’m using takes ‘the 1972-1987 series of low flows’ and uses the outcomes to model the effect of a similar drought with this Dam as well. Egypt is home to the High Aswan Dam (HAD) which was opened in 1970 and was built for both irrigation and hydroelectric power purposes. According to the article the storage of the HAD reservoir will be higher during the drought compared to if the GERD wasn’t built, which would actually result in higher water availability. Figure 4 shows during the drought the Egypt shortage tends to be lower with the GERD, as well as in drought recovery. However, during the peak of the drought the levels are clearly similar and in the first year of drought recovery are even higher.

Figure 4
When a series of floods arrive the rate at which both reservoirs get filled will be a cause of conflict as both will be close to empty and due to the transboundary nature of these Dam’s, Egypt and Sudan will want their water requirement met over the need to fill the GERD to bring it back to full capacity for electricity production. (Wheeler et. al, 2020)

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