Ethiopia has been undergoing a renaissance under new leadership and a government that is no longer under the thumb of the military and single-party rule. This renaissance includes the harnessing of the Blue Nile for Ethiopia’s 109 million people to improve freshwater access for crops and cities, and to generate 6,450 Megawatts of hydroelectricity to power homes and industry.
Known as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), it lies just 30 kilometers to the east of the Sudan border and was started in 2011. The dam today is nearing completion and the reservoir behind it will take up to 10 years to fill. It is currently the largest hydroelectric project in Africa and will hold back 1.6 years of Blue Nile water flow on average.
It is the last fact that is of immediate concern to Ethiopia’s neighbours. Both Egypt and Sudan rely on the annual cycle of the Nile River running throughout their countries, and the Blue Nile provides more freshwater than the main branch. The animosity of Ethiopia’s nieghbours has gotten so intense of late that there have been reported clashes between neighbouring armies. There is even talk of Egypt establishing a military base in neighbouring South Sudan from which it could conceivably launch an offensive into Ethiopia.
So water wars are moving into the present whether we are describing confrontations over the Colorado River between Mexico and the United States, or the tension between Canada and the United States over diverting water from the Great Lakes to an increasingly parched mid and southwest, or China in conflict with India, Nepal, Bhutan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar over the damming of freshwater sources in the Himalayas. Even India and China are reporting tussles along the border between their troops. Could securing freshwater be one of the reasons?
Egypt is accusing Ethiopia of “hydro-hegemony” according to a recent article published in The Guardian. Sudan originally supported the dam and now has switched back to Egypt even though Ethiopia has offered it access to the low electricity rates from GERD. The electricity Ethiopia would produce would replace what the country gets from Egypt’s 2,100 Megawatt Aswan Dam. So this becomes another point of contention between the countries.
The loss of a paying customer isn’t the only reason Egyptians are talking about war. There is a fear that the Egyptian parts of the Nile will no longer experience annual flooding that restores fertility to farms in the Delta and lower reaches of the river. To irrigate adjacent fields with lower post-Monsoon river levels, Egyptian farmers will need to pump Nile water to feed the crops. The downstream impact will mean higher fuel costs for irrigation and the potential of drought conditions when river levels drop. This latter issue is already a growing concern in the age of climate change with the Nile River valley experiencing increasing periods of prolonged drought. Today, 10% of the population faces freshwater scarcity. Climate scientists predict that by 2040 that number will grow to 35% and represent 80 million people.
Right now the freshwater wars on the Sudan-Ethiopian border are limited to skirmishes. But one can imagine an escalation as the lake behind GERD fills to maximum capacity with downstream consequences for Ethiopia’s neighbours.
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Two weeks ago I wrote that freshwater scarcity may be our biggest climate change adaptability challenge. Well it seems I am not the only one speaking to the crowd about this very important issue of the 21st century. The Financial Times report, however, takes a different approach to the subject, looking at its impact on commerce. It cites Coca-Cola, Nestle, BG Group, antero Resources, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Ford and EDF as companies in the throes of addressing freshwater scarcity impacting production. Some like BHP Billiton and Rio Tino are investing in deslination projects. Others are closing plants when freshwater scarcity puts them in conflict with local farm and urban populations trying to preserve what little of the resource they have.
For Coca-Cola, the 24th largest industrial consumer of water in the world, it means spending $2 billion U.S. to reduce freshwater use and improve water quality in its plant and corporate operations. The company has even donated millions to the World Wildlife Fund to improve a river environment where Coca-Cola has an operation 160 kilometers north of London, United Kingdom.
Coca-Cola’s $2 billion is considered a small amount when compared to the total companies are spending to address freshwater and water quality issues. The Financial Times reports that since 2011 companies have invested $84 billion U.S. to obtain, conserve and manage their freshwater supplies globally. And the water market worldwide is estimated to be worth $550 billion and expanding at an annual rate of 3.5%.
For Nestle the water crisis is one of their highest priorities. Peter Brabeck, Chairman, is quoted in the Financial Times report as stating: “Humankind is running out of water at an alarming pace….we’re going to run out of water long before we run out of oil.” The company when assessing new business proposals has introduced an internal “shadow price” of $1.00 U.S. per cubic meter for areas where water is abundant, and $5.00 per cubic meter where water is more scarce.
If you remember Robert Redford’s 1989 film, The Milagro Beanfield War, a story about a water war between a New Mexico developer and a local farmer, it appears that it will be repeated in real life across this planet in many locations during the 21st century.
In Brahma Chellaney‘s morning article in today’s The Globe and Mail he states that many countries and cities will run out of freshwater and cites Sanaa, Yemen as the first capital city to go completely dry. Chellaney gives other examples of impending water crises and conflict zones. He talks about the damming of the upper Brahmaputra in China (see my posting on The Rivers of Asia) potentially leading to water refugees in India and Bangladesh. He talks about Ethiopia’s development of The Blue Nile with a proposed dam that could lead to a war with Egypt. And he takes a quote attributed to Mark Twain during the first California Water Wars, a struggle between Arizona and California over access to the Colorado River for a water starved Los Angeles, in which Twain purportedly stated, “whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.”
