Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)

In 2011, Ethiopia announced a plan to build hydro­elec­tric pow­er on the Blue Nile Riv­er. The dam is called the Grand Ethiopi­an Renais­sance Dam (GERD), and its con­struc­tion will be com­plet­ed by the Ethiopi­an Elec­tric Pow­er Cor­po­ra­tion (EEPCO). Once built, the mega hydro­elec­tric pow­er plant will be the largest hydro­elec­tric pow­er sta­tion in Africa and the 10th largest in the world. It’ll have 13 tur­bines with a 5 GW elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion rate.

This mega project has great impor­tance to Ethiopia. As the fastest devel­op­ing coun­try in the world, the dam sym­bol­izes the country’s devel­op­ment and could fur­ther lift Ethiopia out of pover­ty. The elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed in GERD will exceed the country’s capac­i­ty, and the ener­gy sur­plus can be export­ed to oth­er coun­tries, like Sudan and Kenya, to bring fur­ther prof­its to Ethiopia. Addi­tion­al­ly, elec­tric­i­ty could be used to upgrade the agri­cul­tur­al and indus­tri­al sec­tors, increas­ing the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and qual­i­ty of products.

To Ethiopia, there is noth­ing wrong with the project. On the con­trary, Egypt has extreme com­plaints about it as the dam pos­es a threat to water secu­ri­ty. While Ethiopia claims the dam will only be used for pow­er gen­er­a­tion, GERD will have a reser­voir of 74 giga cubic meters. Ethiopia wants to fill it in three years, with com­ple­tion in 2023, but Egypt request­ed more than a decade fill­ing peri­od. Com­pared to the river’s nat­ur­al flow, the reser­voir may reduce the water flow­ing down­stream. With 90% of Egypt’s fresh­wa­ter com­ing from the Nile Riv­er, any pos­si­ble water inse­cu­ri­ty induced by the dam will be dev­as­tat­ing to Egypt. With most of the Egypt­ian pop­u­la­tion liv­ing along the Nile, drought will not only effect the Egypt­ian econ­o­my, but also the dai­ly lives of the com­mu­ni­ty.  While Egypt does have a mega dam called Aswan Dam on the Nile, hav­ing two mega-dams on the Nile pos­es chal­lenges in water usage between the two coun­tries. Cur­rent­ly, these two dams have no agree­ments on water sharing.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, Egypt has had sole con­trol over the Nile Riv­er. In 1929, Egypt signed a treaty with Britain, where Egypt’s right to the Nile was rec­og­nized, and it owns the right to veto any con­struc­tion projects on the Nile. More­over, in 1959, Egypt and Sudan signed a treaty that allo­cat­ed 55.5 bil­lion cubic meters of Nile water to Egypt and 18.5 bil­lion cubic meters to Sudan. These treaties are con­sid­ered invalid by Ethiopia, and Ethiopia is not sat­is­fied with Egypt’s long­stand­ing con­trol over the Nile. Iron­i­cal­ly, Ethiopia is the source of the Nile, but they have no polit­i­cal access to the resource.

Cur­rent­ly, the first stage of the dam is fin­ished. Ethiopia is fill­ing the reser­voir and antic­i­pates to fin­ish in 2023. The rela­tion­ship between coun­tries on the dam issue is tense, and ten­sion grows as nei­ther coun­try is will­ing to com­pro­mise. Egypt request­ed the UN Secu­ri­ty Con­trol to host the issue, but was reject­ed by Ethiopia. In Sep­tem­ber 2021, UN Secu­ri­ty Con­trol called upon the African Union to take the lead. In June 2021, Ethiopia reject­ed to avoid uni­lat­er­al deci­sions from the Arab League. 

CEE sub­jects: Hydraulics and Hydro­log­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, Envi­ron­men­tal Flu­id Dynam­ics, Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy and Sus­tain­able Infrastructure

• Should the dam be built? Why? 
• There exists research focus­ing on how to cre­ate a win-win sit­u­a­tion for GERD. What pos­si­ble solu­tion can you think of to reach this situation?
• Many cross-bor­der dams in the world induce con­flicts. Com­pared to the envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly hydro­elec­tric pow­er plant, tra­di­tion­al coal-fired pow­er plants may be a bet­ter solu­tion to reduce ten­sion among the coun­tries involved. What’s your opin­ion on this “envi­ron­ment-pol­i­tics nexus”?
• In addi­tion to polit­i­cal fac­tors, what envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors would you want to con­sid­er in con­struct­ing this dam? How could you ensure that the dam will not only be ben­e­fi­cial to the com­mu­ni­ty but is also want­ed by the community?

• Peer reviewed articles 
  • Fill­ing Africa’s Largest Hydropow­er Dam Should Con­sid­er Engi­neer­ing Realities
  • A row is rag­ing over Africa’s largest dam — sci­ence has a solution
  • Under­stand­ing and man­ag­ing new risks on the Nile with the Grand Ethiopi­an Renais­sance Dam
  • The Grand Ethiopi­an Renais­sance Dam: Africa’s Water Tow­er, Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice & Infra­struc­tur­al Power
• Pop­u­lar media/news references 
  • Africa’s Most Con­tro­ver­sial Megaproject
  • Egyp­t’s Dam Prob­lem: The Geopol­i­tics of the Nile
  • The War For Con­trol Over The Riv­er Nile | Rivers And Life | TRACKS
  • Is Ethiopia Steal­ing Egyp­t’s Water?
  • Africa’s largest dam pow­ers dreams of pros­per­i­ty in Ethiopia — and fears of hunger in Egypt
  • The Grand Ethiopi­an Renais­sance Dam: Lim­it­ed Options for a Resolution
  • The Nile Dis­pute: Beyond Water Security
  • Riv­er Nile dam: Why Ethiopia can’t stop it being filled
  • Nile Dam row: Egypt and Ethiopia gen­er­ate heat but no power