Coulomb stress analysis for several filling and operational scenarios at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam impoundment

Abstract

Increased demand for power generation coupled with changing seasonal water uncertainty has caused a worldwide increase in the construction of large hydrologic engineering structures. That said, the soon-to-be-completed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) will impound the Blue Nile River in Western Ethiopia and its reservoir will encompass ~ 1763 km2 and store ~ 67 Gt (km3) of surface water. The impoundment will undergo maximum seasonal load changes of ~ 28 to ~ 36 Gt during projected seasonal hydroelectric operations. The GERD impoundment will cause significant subsurficial stresses, and could possibly trigger seismicity in the region. This study examines Coulomb stress and hydrologic load centroid movements for several GERD impoundment and operational scenarios. The maximum subsurficial Coulomb stress applied on optimally oriented fault planes from the full impoundment is ~ 186 kPa and over 30% of our model domain incurs Coulomb stresses ≥ 10 kPa, regardless of the impoundment period length. The main driver behind Coulomb stress and load centroid motion during impoundment is the annual, accumulated daily reservoir storage change. The maximum Coulomb stresses from the highest amplitude season of five long-term operational scenarios are around 36, 33, 29, 41, and 24% of the total maximum stresses from the entire GERD impoundment. Variations in annual Coulomb stresses during modeled GERD operations are attributed to the seasonal load per unit area, and partially to the initial seasonal water level. The spatial patterns and amplitudes of these stress tensors are closely linked to both the size and timing of GERD inflow/outflow rates, and an improved understanding of the magnitude and extent of these stresses provides useful information to water managers to better understand potential reservoir triggered seismic events from several different operational and impoundment strategies.

Long noncoding RNA MALAT1 inhibition attenuates sepsis‐induced acute lung injury through modulating the miR‐129‐5p/PAX6/ZEB2 axis

“…A total of 112 patients with sepsis admitted to our hospital were selected. Inclusion criteria were as follows: (1) sepsis was defined according to the diagnostic criteria in the Guidelines for Emergency Treatment of Sepsis/Septic Shock in China (2018) 23 ; (2) patients aged over 18 years. Exclusion criteria were as follows: (1) ALI caused by trauma, lung surgery, drowning, and toxic gas inhalation; (2) patients were clinically confirmed with lung diseases such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchial asthma, and pulmonary fibrosis; (3) patients were combined with autoimmune diseases and blood system diseases.…”

Comprehensive Assessment for the Potential Environmental Impacts of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Downstream Countries: Itaipu Dam in the Rearview Mirror

“…Although, Egypt and Sudan are expected to face water scarcity challenges during the filling period (Abdeldayem et al, 2020), Ethiopia has continued their individual actions without reaching an abiding agreement with the downstream countries and filled the dam for the second year with around 2-3 BCM (Kansara et al, 2021) which empowers the downstream countries situation when Egypt jointly with Sudan took the GERD dispute file to the United Nation Security Council and shows how the situation is a matter of live for the downstream countries and how the Egypt and Sudan are concerned about such an individual action. Because decreasing the filling years means more reduction of the flow arriving to Sudan and Egypt (Abtew & Dessu, 2019;Borowski, 2020;Madson & Sheng, 2021). However, the filling period and possible political conflict is intensively dependent on climate change and the amount of the rainfall that are expected to fall during the filling period.…”