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The Nile River is considered one of the most complex rivers in the world because of its transboundary nature and its significance for riparian countries. Currently, the basin experiences challenges stemming from a rapid population increase and the prospect of a significant economic growth, which in turn have sparked development plans aimed at meeting the growing demand for water, energy, and food. A System Dynamics approach provides a unique framework to integrate the physical system and the socio-economic drivers with the ability to capture the interaction and feedback processes between different system components. A water resources model for the entire Nile basin using the System Dynamics approach was developed as a first step. The model results for the flows at gauge locations showed a good agreement with the historical flows measurements, which reflects the SDM ability to capture the dynamic behaviour of the river and reproduce the patterns and trends of the historical flows. A description of the model development process is presented along with simulation results at the key hydrological sites in the basin. The potential to integrate the developed model with food, energy and socio-economic drivers in the basin is provided.

Establishing cooperation in transboundary rivers is challenging especially with the weak or non-existent river basin institutions. A nexus-based approach is developed to explore cooperation opportunities in transboundary river basins while considering system operation and coordination under uncertain hydrologic river regimes. The proposed approach is applied to the Nile river basin with a special focus on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), assuming two possible governance positions: with or without cooperation. A cooperation mechanism is developed to allocate additional releases from the GERD when necessary, while a unilateral position assumes that the GERD is operated to maximize hydropower generation regardless of downstream users' needs. The GERD operation modes were analysed considering operation of downstream reservoirs and varying demands in Egypt. Results show that average basin-wide hydropower generation is likely to increase by about 547 GWh/year (1%) if cooperation is adopted when compared to the unilateral position. In Sudan, hydropower generation and water supply are expected to enhance in the unilateral position and would improve further with cooperation. Furthermore, elevated low flows by the GERD are likely to improve the WFE nexus outcomes in Egypt under full cooperation governance scenario with a small reduction in GERD hydropower generation (2,000 GWh/year (19%)).

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