With increasing demand and fickle supplies, Nile riparian countries are becoming more aware of the need for integrated water sharing and management. Many of the associated issues and development constraints surfaced at a recent conference in Aswan, writes Alan Nicol The Nile has been sold. An international organisation comprising the nine Nile Basin states -- Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Zaire -- has bought the river with help from the World Bank and other multinational organizations. Each riparian country paid an amount proportional to the quantity of its water requirements. A few states have already sold rights to some of their share back to the organisation, the Nile River Authority (NRA), at an agreed fixed price. The NRA is developing projects to increase the available supply using proceeds from these resold shares and member state contributions. Necessity breeds invention. And it is necessity borne of an impending water crisis which might one day force invention. At the moment, however, such a state of technical experts, or, at best, in their notebooks. The need to develop a comprehensive water resources plan for the Nile Basin recently brought experts from all the riparian countries to a conference in Aswan under the banner "Getting Started". Multilateral and bilateral organizations, including the World Bank, USAID, the United Nations Development Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) also attended and helped to spell out the need for a coherent long term strategy. "Current water use trends indicate the utilisation of Nile water is reaching the maximum level sustainable by existing flows as currently managed," a FAO representative told delegates. In the long-term he foresaw "no reasonable alternative to the establishment of an international for management of the transboundary resources of the Nile basin". Two well known factors account for this urgency: the burgeoning population of Nile basin states and the problem of ensuring adequate and consistent supplies. Of a total of some 140 million people living in the Nile basin at least 70 million are heavily dependent on the river's waters for domestic, industrial and agricultural use. The combined population of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan alone is expected to total 160-170 million by 2000. Increased food production, involving agricultural expansion or intensification, will become a necessity demanding greater water supplies. The only other option -- which is politically uncomfortable to say the least -- is to rely on food imports and forsake any long-term food sufficiency strategy. For Egypt, which already relies on imports for approximately 60 per cent of its food needs, the forecast is bleak. In 1990 Egyptian agriculture accounted for the lion's share of water use -- 84 per cent or 49.7 billion m3 -- per year. One recent authoritative report states however, that "... the relative share of water available for agricultural sector in Egypt will decline steadily with time in the future. The decline is likely to be significant in the post-2000 period". The introduction of new irrigation methods and greater water conservation will be imperative. However Egypt is already using more water than its 55.5 billion m3 share. Borrowing from Sudan's 18.5 billion m3 share (Sudan presently uses about 16 billion m3 according to the most generous calculation) and reusing drainage water. One estimate puts Egypt's current water demand at 64.2 billion m3. Egypt's demand and supply is therefore already finely balanced. And although a recent report states: "In the near future, it appears that Egypt will be able to conserve enough water to meet its minimal needs," this assume a string of provisos, not least of which is fairy static incipient use by upstream states. Calculating future supplies based on assumptions about future demand can be dangerous, however. Matters are complicated considerably by possible change in population distribution within the basin. At present Ethiopia's population is approximately 10 per cant less than Egypt's. However, it is projected to be 20 per cent higher -- at 122 million compared to 99 million -- by 2025. Sudan's population is expected to reach 56 million. Ethiopia is not signatory to any water sharing agreement thus far, and therefore has no "formal share". However, the country still wishes to implement long-drawn-up irrigation and hydro- power generation plans to help overcome what FAO describes as crippling "structural food deficit". FAO estimates that a four per cent annual increase in food production would be essential to meet future needs, even if the birth rate was to remain static. As if this were not serious enough challenge, agricultural production in Ethiopia actually declined at an annual rate of 0.6 per cent between 1980 and 1988. Not surprisingly, therefore, with the end of the disastrous civil war, agricultural schemes drawn up by the US Bureau of Reclamation in the 1960s, proposing that about 434,000 have turned over irrigated agriculture, are back on the drawing board. Such massive plans (equivalent to about 17 per cent of irrigated area in Egypt) inevitably require quantities of water -- six billion m3. Amore recent estimate suggests that 900,000 could be irrigated, requiring 12 billion m3 of water. However, Egypt and Sudan are the only two states subject to a binding agreement which strictly stipulates water allocations. The 1959 Nile Waters Agreement allocates Egypt 55.5 billion m3 and Sudan 18.5 m3 of the total 84 billion m3 mean annual discharge 1900-1957. Some 10 billion m3 are assumed to be lost annually to evaporation which have subsequently proved to be overly optimistic. Until the 1988 flood in Sudan and Ethiopia, an annual mean of only 72 billion m3 between 1977 and 1987 meant levels at the Aswan high Dam dropped by some 15 per cent. Egypt was only saved severe discomfiture by being able to use some of Sudan's share, and through very careful water conversation. The key to matching future food supplies with demand for water therefore lies in the development of water storage facilities and greater attention to conversation projects. Ethiopian intentions are accorded particular scrutiny. The Blue Nile which flows from lack Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands contributes, together with other tributaries, some 86 per cent of the main Nile flow. Indeed, it was primarily to capture the full extent of this huge, seasonal flood between June and November that prompted the building of the Aswan High Dam. At the conference in Aswan five proposals, described as "constructive" by the Egyptian hosts, were presented by Ethiopia. They ranged from how to comprehensively identify the resources of the basin and the needs and requirements of each country to the importance of international agency involvement in the sustainable and environmentally sound use of the "finite Nile waters". One particular proposal was the construction of water storage facilities in upstream region such as the Ethiopian highlands. The improved volume to surface ratios and higher elevations of such upstream sites would reduce evaporation losses which afflict downstream reservoirs thereby increasing the supply of water available to all basin countries, the paper said. The hydro-power potential of dams would be considerable as well. It is precisely worries over the future supply of water which an integrated plan and institutional arrangement could help alleviate, and any guarantees included would provide projects such as above the necessary green light for implementation. The future demand for water in the agricultural development of Sudan and Egypt is potentially vast and importance of this sector to national development already considerable. Agriculture contributes 40 per cent to GDP and provides livelihoods for 80 per cent of the population in Sudan and in Egypt. As the largest productive sector, it provides 20 per cent of GDP, 40 per cent of civilian employment and 12 per cent of export earnings. Therefore the potential for increased supplies from such projects has considered long term allure. But to ensure long term equitable distribution and reliable supply of water a new agreement is required. And as a gentle reminder of the urgency of reaching a comprehensive basin- wide agreement, many of the international donor agencies present at the Aswan conference said that funds for projects might not be so readily available in the future. Other regions of the world now beckon. Egypt's country paper at the conference stated that an institutional framework for cooperation is easily reached once a sustainable integrated plan has been developed. The difficulty lies in summoning up the political will, and imagination, to turn the dream into a plan, and not a nightmare. Issue 104 - 18 February 1993
