{"id":33531,"date":"2020-07-24T10:33:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T07:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/five-questions-about-ethiopias-controversial-nile-dam\/"},"modified":"2020-07-24T10:33:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T07:33:00","slug":"five-questions-about-ethiopias-controversial-nile-dam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/five-questions-about-ethiopias-controversial-nile-dam\/","title":{"rendered":"#Five questions about Ethiopia’s controversial Nile dam"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Five questions about Ethiopia’s controversial Nile dam<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"The<\/img>
\n The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is the biggest hydro-electric project in Africa
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ethiopia said this week it had hit its first-year target for filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a concrete colossus 145 metres (475 feet) high that has fuelled tensions with downstream nations for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n

\n <\/section>\n

Here is a Q&A about the dispute:<\/p>\n

Why is the dam so controversial?<\/b>
\nThe more than $4-billion (3.4-million-euro) project is situated in western Ethiopia on the Blue Nile, which converges with the White Nile in the Sudanese capital Khartoum before flowing north through Egypt toward the Mediterranean Sea.
\nEthiopia’s downstream neighbours worry the dam will restrict vital water supplies.
\nThey are especially concerned about what might happ<\/a>en should there be a drought while Ethiopia is still filling the reservoir, a process that will take several years.
\nEgypt depends on the Nile for about 97 percent of its irrigation and drinking water, and says it has “historic rights” to the river guaranteed by treaties from 1929 and 1959.
\nEthiopia was not party to those treaties and does not see them as valid.
\nIt signed a separate agreement in 2010 with other countries, which Egypt and Sudan boycotted, which allows irrigation projects and hydroelectric dams.
\nOver half of Ethiopia’s population of 110 million people lives without power.
\nHas Ethiopia started filling the dam?<\/b>
\nThe row over the dam intensified in recent months as Ethiopia prepared to begin filling the reservoir, which can hold 74 billion cubic metres (2,600 billion cubic feet) of water.
\nEgypt and Sudan pushed for Ethiopia to hold off on this until the three countries agreed how the dam would be managed and operated. <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Satellite<\/img>
\n Satellite pictures this week showed water building up behind the dam (image by Maxar Technologies)
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has maintained that filling the reservoir is an essential step in the dam’s construction.
\nLast week, Ethiopia acknowledged water was accumulating behind the dam although officials said this was a “natural” part of the construction process.
\nEthiopia is in the middle of its rainy season, and officials say the flow of the Blue Nile exceeds the capacity of the dam’s bypass channels to send water downstream.
\nAbiy’s office then announced this week that Ethiopia had achieved its first filling target of 4.9 billion cubic metres, which would allow for testing of the dam’s first two turbines\u2014an important step towards generating energy.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia hopes to begin generating electricity from the dam by the end of this year or early 2021. The dam has an expected capacity of more than 5,000 megawatts, according to experts.
\nHow does filling actually work?<\/b>
\nIt is unclear whether Ethiopia took active steps like closing gates to expedite filling of the reservoir, though water was bound to accumulate naturally.
\n“Ethiopia didn’t have to do anything active for the reservoir to start retaining water. The water accumulated as a result of naturally large inflows this year, the hydraulic capacity of the bypass channels, and the current elevation of the structure,” said Kevin Wheeler, an engineer at the University of Oxford who has studied the dam.
\nAs construction progresses and the structure grows taller, the dam’s spillway is positioned at a higher elevation, meaning more water is retained.
\nEthiopia plans to fill the reservoir over five years, though it has expressed a willingness to extend that to seven.
\nWhat does this mean for negotiations?<\/b>
\nObservers have warned that the dispute over initiating reservoir filling risks distracting from other major areas of disagreement.
\nThese include which mechanism should be used to resolve disputes over the dam’s operations and how the dam should be managed during a drought. <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Ethiopia's<\/img>
\n Map of East Africa showing the Nile and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Successive rounds of talks have failed to yield a breakthrough on these points.
\nThe African Union is overseeing the current negotiations.
\nOn Tuesday, leaders held their latest virtual summit as part of that process, with all parties saying afterwards there was an agreement to continue talks.
\nBut it is unclear what progress has been made.
\nWith Ethiopia celebrating hitting its first-year filling target, Egypt could come under pressure at home to take a harder line going forward.
\nMostafa Kamel el-Sayed, a professor of political science<\/a> at Cairo University, described recent events as “a debacle for the Egyptian diplomacy”.
\n“Since there is no indication that the Ethiopian government has relaxed its position, we are completely in the dark,” he said.
\n“It is very surprising that the Egyptian government accepted the resuming of the negotiations.”
\nWhat does the dam mean to Ethiopia?<\/b>
\nThe dam has long been a source of national pride in Ethiopia.
\nThe country broke ground on it in 2011 under then-Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who pitched it as a catalyst for poverty eradication.
\nCivil servants contributed one month’s salary towards the project that year, and the government has since issued dam bonds targeting Ethiopians at home and abroad.
\nNearly a decade later, the dam remains a potent symbol of Ethiopia’s development aspirations.
\nIt also offers a rare point of unity in an ethnically-diverse country undergoing a fraught democratic transition and awaiting elections delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

\n<\/hr>\n
\n<\/hr>\n

\n \u00a9 2020 AFP<\/p>\n

\n Citation<\/strong>:
\n Five questions about Ethiopia’s controversial Nile dam (2020, July 24)
\n retrieved 24 July 2020
\n from https:\/\/phys.org\/news<\/a>\/2020-07-ethiopia-controversial-nile.html<\/p>\n

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
\n part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our Science category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

if you want to watch Movies<\/a> or Tv Shows go to Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a> <\/span> for forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Five questions about Ethiopia’s controversial Nile dam” The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is the biggest hydro-electric project in Africa Ethiopia said this week it had hit its first-year target for filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a concrete colossus 145 metres (475 feet) high that has fuelled tensions with downstream nations for nearly a decade….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[10595,43500],"class_list":["post-33531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sciencee","tag-environment","tag-five-questions-about-ethiopias-controversial-nile-dam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}