Water for Energy and Food: A System Modelling Approach for Blue Nile River Basin

Tan, Cho Chia; Erfani, Tohid; Erfani, Rasool

doi:10.3390/environments4010015

Cited by 12 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…When completed, the GERD will become the largest hydroelectric dam (installed capacity exceeding 5,000MW) in Africa (Government of Ethiopia, 2020) and will have a total reservoir capacity of 74 billion cubic meters. The GERD is expected to produce an average of 15,130 GWh of electricity annually (Tan et al, 2017), which will contribute to Ethiopia's national energy grid and feed the East African power pool (Nile Basin Initiative, 2012). Although the GERD is primarily designed for hydropower, and thus non-consumptive, operating to maximize power generation may result in a water release schedule significantly different from the natural annual cycle, particularly considering drought periods, with implications to Sudan and Egypt.…”

Section: Study Area and Data The Blue Nile Basin And The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dammentioning

confidence: 99%

Transboundary water sharing policies conditioned on hydrologic variability to inform reservoir operations

Yang¹,

Block²

2021

Preprint

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Abstract. Water resources infrastructure is critical for energy and food security, however, the development of large-scale infrastructure, such as hydropower dams, may significantly alter downstream flows, potentially leading to water resources management conflicts and disputes, especially in transboundary river basins. Mutually agreed upon water sharing policies for the operation of existing or new reservoirs is one of the most effective strategies to mitigate conflict, yet this is a complex task involving the estimation of available water, identification of users and demands, procedures for water sharing, etc. We propose a water-sharing policy framework that incorporates reservoir operating rules optimization based on conflicting uses and natural hydrologic variability, specifically tailored to drought conditions. We first establish the trade-off between downstream and upstream water availability utilizing multi-objective optimization of reservoir operating rules. Next, we simulate reservoir operation with the candidate (optimal) rules, evaluate their performance, and select the most suitable rules for balancing water uses. Subsequently, we build a relationship between the reservoir operations simulated from the selected rules and drought-specific conditions to derive water-sharing policies. Finally, we re-optimize the reservoir operating rules to evaluate the effectiveness of the drought-specific water sharing policies. We apply the framework to reservoir operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile River. We find that the derived water sharing policy can balance GERD power generation and downstream releases, especially in dry conditions, effectively sharing the hydrologic risk in inflow variability among riparian countries. The proposed framework offers a robust approach to inform water sharing policies for sustainable management of transboundary water resources.

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Section: Study Area and Data The Blue Nile Basin And The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dammentioning

confidence: 99%

Transboundary water sharing policies conditioned on hydrologic variability to inform reservoir operations

Yang¹,

Block²

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…When completed, the GERD will become the largest hydroelectric dam (installed capacity more than 5000 MW) in Africa (Government of Ethiopia, 2020) and will have a total reservoir capacity of 74 billion m 3 . The GERD is expected to produce an average of 15 130 GWh of electricity annually (with a mean output of 1727 MW; Tan et al, 2017;Tesfa, 2013), which will contribute to Ethiopia's national energy grid and feed the East African power pool (Nile Basin Initiative, 2012). There is uncertainty in media reports regarding the total installed capacity for GERD, which ranges from 5150 MW (Ezega News, 2019b) to 6000 MW (Ezega News, 2019a;Zelalem, 2020).…”

Section: Study Area and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Water sharing policies conditioned on hydrologic variability to inform reservoir operations

Yang

Block

2021

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Water resources infrastructure is critical for energy and food security; however, the development of large-scale infrastructure, such as hydropower dams, may significantly alter downstream flows, potentially leading to water resources management conflicts and disputes. Mutually agreed upon water sharing policies for the operation of existing or new reservoirs is one of the most effective strategies for mitigating conflict, yet this is a complex task involving the estimation of available water, identification of users and demands, procedures for water sharing, etc. A water sharing policy framework that incorporates reservoir operating rules optimization based on conflicting uses and natural hydrologic variability, specifically tailored to drought conditions, is proposed. First, the trade-off between downstream and upstream water availability utilizing multi-objective optimization of reservoir operating rules is established. Next, reservoir operation with the candidate (optimal) rules is simulated, followed by their performance evaluations, and the rule selections for balancing water uses. Subsequently, a relationship between the reservoir operations simulated from the selected rules and drought-specific conditions is built to derive water sharing policies. Finally, the reservoir operating rules are re-optimized to evaluate the effectiveness of the drought-specific water sharing policies. With a case study of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile river, it is demonstrated that the derived water sharing policy can balance GERD power generation and downstream releases, especially in dry conditions, effectively sharing the hydrologic risk in inflow variability among riparian countries. The proposed framework offers a robust approach to inform water sharing policies for sustainable management of water resources.

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“…Future water security, principally projected in rainfall patters, in this region remains undetermined, and this uncertainty, combined with the inherent uncertainty in population and resource demand projections and interactions, leads to a large overall uncertainty in future water scarcity. The importance of the relationship between water, energy, and food is better understood through interrelated modelling [3]. Through this, strategies can be formulated that aim to best and fairly satisfy the demands of all affected parties, whether that be domestic users, industrial users or the ecosystem, amongst others [4][5][6][7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reliability and Robustness Analysis of the Masinga Dam under Uncertainty

Postle-Floyd

Erfani

2017

Climate

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Kenya's water abstraction must meet the projected growth in municipal and irrigation demand by the end of 2030 in order to achieve the country's industrial and economic development plan. The Masinga dam, on the Tana River, is the key to meeting this goal to satisfy the growing demands whilst also continuing to provide hydroelectric power generation. This study quantitatively assesses the reliability and robustness of the Masinga dam system under uncertain future supply and demand using probabilistic climate and population projections, and examines how long-term planning may improve the longevity of the dam. River flow and demand projections are used alongside each other as inputs to the dam system simulation model linked to an optimisation engine to maximise water availability. Water availability after demand satisfaction is assessed for future years, and the projected reliability of the system is calculated for selected years. The analysis shows that maximising power generation on a short-term year-by-year basis achieves 80%, 50% and 1% reliability by 2020, 2025 and 2030 onwards, respectively. Longer term optimal planning, however, has increased system reliability to up to 95% in 2020, 80% in 2025, and more than 40% in 2030 onwards. In addition, increasing the capacity of the reservoir by around 25% can significantly improve the robustness of the system for all future time periods. This study provides a platform for analysing the implication of different planning and management of Masinga dam and suggests that careful consideration should be given to account for growing municipal needs and irrigation schemes in both the immediate and the associated Tana River basin.

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Water for Energy and Food: A System Modelling Approach for Blue Nile River Basin

Cited by 12 publications

References 29 publications

Transboundary water sharing policies conditioned on hydrologic variability to inform reservoir operations

Transboundary water sharing policies conditioned on hydrologic variability to inform reservoir operations

Water sharing policies conditioned on hydrologic variability to inform reservoir operations

Reliability and Robustness Analysis of the Masinga Dam under Uncertainty

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