An alarming future looms over Egypt's water security, both in an absolute sense because of projected demands on water resources and in terms of the Ethiopian bid to waylay Nile water destined for Egypt. Addis Ababa is proceeding from the premise that its economic progress is not only contingent on development projects, but above all is a matter of encumbering the economies of Egypt and Sudan by controlling 86 per cent of Egypt's water resources and about 60 per cent of Sudan's, thereby hampering any effective economic planning. Egypt's current state of water security is bleak, as it already has a water deficit of 30 billion cubic metres. With a population that has just passed 90 million, each individual requires 1,000 cubic metres of water just to survive at the water scarcity level (the average per capita water consumption in the world is 7,230 cubic metres a year), Egypt annually needs at the very least 90 billion cubic metres of water. Yet we currently have only 60 billion cubic metres, of which 55.5 billion is the quota that we have been received for thousands of years. The other five billion cubic metres comes from non-renewable subterranean water resources in the deserts. Most of this is used to cultivate reclaimed land used to make up for the loss of agricultural land in the Nile Valley and Delta. In other words, we compensate for the approximately 2.5 million acres of land lost to urban expansion with an equal area of infertile desert land that is very costly to cultivate. This, in turn, has led us to recycle about 10 billion cubic metres of highly saline agricultural runoff water, which is polluted with the remnants of fertilisers and insecticides, thereby augmenting the salinisation of large tracts of land in the Delta where 75 per cent of Egypt's food is produced on 4.5 million acres of fertile soil. As Egypt lies in an arid to hyper-arid zone, its agricultural and inhabited areas receive only 1.3 billion cubic metres of rainfall a year. With our extremely dry climate, 33 times as much is lost to evaporation. Indeed, because of higher temperatures and higher rates of evapotranspiration, far greater quantities of water are needed for cultivation than in Europe or countries with cooler climates. This situation will be much graver 34 years from now. By 2050, Egypt's population will have increased to 135 million, necessitating 135 billion cubic metres of water as a minimum level for human survival. The Egyptian water deficit will therefore climb to 75 billion cubic metres, presuming that our water resources remain at their current level with no reduction, particularly in Egypt's quota of 55.5 billion cubic metres of Nile water. That quota will suffer reductions due to Ethiopia's greed for Nile water because it links its development to this resource alone and especially to its three rivers, which combine to form the Nile and does not include the 12 other river basins, each of which has dozens of tributaries. In fact, the Blue Nile alone is fed by some 20 tributaries. Egypt's greater problem in planning for the future, whether in terms of food or energy security, is the sense that its water security is in such grave peril as to jeopardise its national security and the future survival of its people. Already, under the current water paucity, Egypt suffers a deficit of 55 per cent of its food requirements. As a result, it costs the treasury $10 billion a year to import essential foodstuffs, which includes 70 per cent of the country's needs in wheat. Wheat has topped Egyptian imports since 2005, with quantities of up to 11 million tons a year out of its total consumption of 15 million to 16 million tons annually being imported. Wheat is followed by the import of 60 per cent of the country's needs of yellow feed corn, of which, at quantities of six million tons a year, we are the fourth-largest importer in the world. In addition, we import all our needs of lentils, about 70 per cent of beans, 32 per cent of sugar and 97 per cent of food oil, of which we are the world's seventh-largest importer. In view of the two-fold impact of limited water resources and population growth, Egypt's future food security is heavily contingent on the availability of water. Moreover, it is anticipated that the food deficit will increase to 75 per cent, necessitating even greater amounts of foreign currency to cover import needs. Legitimate concerns: It is little wonder, then, that Egypt is so concerned by developments in Ethiopia from which originates 86 per cent of the country's renewable water resources via three rivers: the Blue Nile, the Atbara and the Sobat. Ethiopia has plans to construct a number of dams on all of these. After the completion of the 9 billion cubic metres of water capacity. Tekeze Dam in 2010 on a tributary of the Atbara, it initiated plans for another dam with the same capacity on the Atbara itself, even though the annual flow of the Atbara does not exceed 12 billion to 13 billion cubic metres. To the south, Ethiopia has also completed the planning of two dams on the Baro and Pipor rivers, both tributaries of the Sobat, and a smaller dam on the Birbir. All these tributaries combined contribute 12.1 billion cubic metres a year to the Nile. The dams will have a great impact as they are intended to furnish water to irrigate around 1.5 million acres of land, as well as to generate electricity, which means they will consume water. This, moreover, will be at a rate of no less than half the amount of annual flow, which means that the contribution to the Nile will be reduced to five billion cubic metres per year. The greater problem is with the Blue Nile, with its average annual flow of 50 billion cubic metres, or the equivalent of 59 to 64 per cent of the total flow of the Nile. True to form, Ethiopia has planned to create a reservoir behind the dam with a capacity larger than the flow of the river itself. According to current specifications, that capacity is to be 74.5 billion cubic metres a year, or 1.5 times the annual flow of the Blue Nile. A minimum of five billion cubic metres of water will be lost from the surface of this artificial lake due to evaporation because of the hot and dry climate in the Benishangul-Gumuz region where the dam is being built, a climate that contrasts starkly with that of the cooler Ethiopian Highlands in the interior. In addition, similar amounts of water are expected to be lost in seepage through the basin of the lake, where the ground is noted for massive geological faults. With such variables factored in, the actual reservoir capacity of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) could come to 90 billion cubic metres per year, and this on a relatively small river, the Blue Nile, with a total annual flow of 50 billion cubic metres. But the GERD, for which Egypt alone is expected to pay the price because of Ethiopia's designs to secure total unilateral control over the international rivers that pass through its territory, will encounter another serious problem: the enormous quantities of silt and sediment carried by the Blue Nile. Estimated at 136.5 million tons a year, these quantities will be sufficient to demolish the GERD in 50 years, while persistently reducing reservoir capacity. Therefore, four auxiliary dams are also required upstream to retain portions of the silt and prolong the GERD's lifespan to 200 years. These extra dams will also retain about 200 billion cubic metres of water from the river. Yet, contrary to all the facts and logic, Ethiopia insists on claiming that its dams will not harm Egypt's water quota, despite the huge amounts of evaporation and seepage from the reservoirs behind the four auxiliary dams which will consume at least half of the Egyptian quota and place the lives of 90 million Egyptians at risk. There is no other reason for constructing so many “faucets” along the Nile's tributaries other than to wrongfully acquire the right to control every drop of water that flows beyond the Ethiopian border, as if it were natural gas or oil, or as if Addis Ababa needed to curtail the huge sums it pays on cloud-seeding, or as if Egypt had dug the river from Ethiopia to the Mediterranean against Ethiopia's will. Clearly, Addis Ababa has forgotten that the Nile and its waters are a natural resource that, morally and in accordance with international conventions, requires cooperation, not monopolisation. With 50 per cent of its construction now completed, the GERD is expected to begin generating electricity through its first turbines in the coming six months. To produce the estimated 700 MW of electricity, 14 billion cubic metres of water needs to be stored behind the dam during this period, with no consideration for the drought that has now entered its ninth consecutive year, as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In 2007, the IPCC forecast that rainfall over the Ethiopian Highlands where the sources of the Blue Nile originate would plunge 70 per cent below its yearly average. True to the IPCC's warnings, the situation this time around is more ominous as droughts in the past never extended beyond seven years. Clearly, to horde water under such conditions is nothing less than a crime against humanity for if Addis Ababa were to apply the principle of not inflicting harm on other nations it would have waited for the first abundant flood to enable Sudan to fill the three reservoirs (at Rosseres and Sennar on the Blue Nile and at Meroe on the joint Nile) that it uses to generate electricity. Then it would give Egypt the opportunity to make up at least partially for the water it has had to use from Lake Nasser behind the Aswan High Dam to help meet Egyptian needs during these nine years of drought. For Ethiopia to hold back 14 billion cubic metres of Nile water under such conditions of drought and aridity can only signify a mentality devoid of compassion and consideration for others. Against international law: For Ethiopia to grant itself the right to assert absolute sovereignty over water resources that pass beyond its borders through the Nile or other rivers runs against all international conventions governing transboundary river courses. Under the Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses adopted by the UN General Assembly 1997, no country has the right to claim absolute sovereignty over such watercourses. Rather, the convention underscores the principles of joint sovereign rights, cooperation, mutual benefit and averting harm to others. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that Egypt signed the Declaration of Principles of the GERD in Khartoum on 23 March 2015, thereby committing itself to recognise the Renaissance Dam, after international consulting companies concluded that there would be no adverse hydrological, socioeconomic and environmental impacts on the downstream countries, and in spite of the fact that the eighth article of the declaration stipulates that technicians from the three countries must reach agreement on the filling of the GERD reservoir and putting it into operation in a manner that does not harm Egypt and Sudan, Ethiopia flouted the agreement and unilaterally announced two months ago that it would restore the Blue Nile to its original course. As that course is now obstructed by the GERD, it began to store up water, indifferent to the rights and welfare of the downstream nations, especially under the harsh conditions of a period of aridity and drought unprecedented in the region for at least 50 years. Stranger yet has been the fact that Ethiopia says that it will not infringe upon the share of Nile waters that Egypt has received and relied on for thousands of years, but when asked to commit itself to this in writing it has vehemently refused. Nothing could more clearly demonstrate to the international community Addis Ababa's intention to do the opposite of what it says and to impair Egypt's share of water from the Nile. Ethiopia's excuses for refusing to sign a Nile waters partition agreement are feeble. The argument that Nile floods are abundant in some years and scant in others is invalid as the countries concerned have been acting in terms of average annual flows for a hundred years, which, in the case of the Blue Nile, have been 50 billion cubic metres. In addition, with an annual reservoir capacity of 74.5 billion cubic metres, the GERD will end fluctuations in the flow of the Blue Nile and, once it is completed and the reservoir filled, permit the resumption of the flow of 50 billion cubic metres a year through regularly scheduled outflows. Accordingly, Ethiopia's refusal to sign a water-sharing agreement or treaty with Egypt and Sudan is a clear indication of its ill intentions regarding the use of Nile waters. Further proof of this is to be found in Ethiopia's attitude with regard to the height of the rock-fill saddle dam that does not generate electricity. Its only function is to cut off water from Egypt and add 60 billion cubic metres to the main dam, which is designed to generate electricity. Just lowering the height of the saddle dam from 45 metres to 25 would reduce its capacity by half and alleviate fears over the future of the Egyptian people's water security. Only a few months are left before the GERD begins to store up the water of the Blue Nile, and Egypt is still uncertain of its future share. The Ethiopian foreign minister recently declared before his country's parliament that filling the GERD reservoir was part of the plan for the construction of the dam and that it had no connection with any treaties with Egypt or Sudan. This is another way of saying that Addis Ababa is determined to renege on the Declaration of Principles signed in Khartoum a year ago. The minister went on to proclaim that Ethiopia had not and would never make any concessions to Egypt regarding water or commitment to specific quotas. In so saying, he made Ethiopia's ill intentions toward Egypt explicit. As for Egypt, it will not be able to plan for the future of its industrial, agricultural, domestic and municipal sectors until it knows for certain what its share of the Nile water will be, for only then will it be able to determine the numbers of factories and homes it can build in the coming decades, or in what direction it should develop agriculturally, and how much more land it can reclaim and put under cultivation. Has the world ever seen a case similar to that which Egypt is currently facing as a result of the uncertainitsy hanging over the Nile and its consequent inability to plan for the future, or even to guarantee the survival of its people? Does the international community realise that this is entirely the product of the insistence of another country to monopolise the River Nile and build dams wherever and whenever it pleases, as if Ethiopia somehow had the wisdom to elect itself as the river's source, or as if Egypt had committed a sin by being a downstream country? To Egyptians, who only have a single river and one that has given its people life and civilisation, water is synonymous with national security. Ethiopia should not lay the foundations for future conflicts that could set East Africa ablaze. The writer is a professor of soil and water sciences at Cairo University's Faculty of Agriculture.
