Is South Sudan First Case of Permanent Mass Displacement Due to Climate Change?

 The Conversation published on 10 September 2024 a commentary titled "South Sudan Floods: The First Example of a Mass Population Permanently Displaced by Climate Change?" by Liz Stephens, University of Reading, and Jacob Levi, Institute of International Health, Berlin University of Medicine.  

Floods have engulfed much of South Sudan.  Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from the Sudd due to flooding along the White Nile.  The floods seem to be getting worse each year, raising concerns that many South Sudanese will be permanently displaced.

Upper Nile in South Sudan Prepares for War

 Small Arms Survey published in March 2023 an analysis titled "Upper Nile Prepares to Return to War."

Armed groups are mobilizing for conflict in South Sudan's Upper Nile province.  The commanders of the armed groups in Upper Nile are acting with different degrees of autonomy from their backers in the capital of Juba.  A resurgence of violence will interrupt the distribution of humanitarian supplies and services in Upper Nile and Jonglei provinces.  

Nile River, Basin, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, and Climate Change

Nature Climate Change published in January 2023 a study titled "Cooperative Adaptive Management of the Nile River with Climate and Socio-Economic Uncertainties" by ten experts in the United Kingdom. 

This technical study presents a planning framework for adaptive management of the Nile infrastructure system, combining climate projections; hydrological, river system and economy-wide simulators; and artificial intelligence multi-objective design and machine learning algorithms.  It concludes that if Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt compromise cooperatively and adaptively in managing the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the national-level economic and resilience benefits are substantial, especially under climate projections with the most extreme streamflow changes.  

Flooding in Sudan and Possible Mitigation by Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

 Agence France Presse published on 22 August 2022 an article titled "After 'Doomsday' Floods, Sudanese Fear Worse to Come."

Heavy rains in Sudan's White Nile basin are causing severe flooding; so far this year, 146,000 Sudanese have been negatively impacted along the White Nile and the Nile River.  

Comment:  The Blue Nile, which begins in Ethiopia, joins the White Nile at Khartoum, thus creating the Nile River.  Much of the flooding has been downstream from Khartoum.  This is a situation where the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile may have mitigated the flooding this year in Sudan while Ethiopia was filling the reservoir behind the dam.  Sudan and Ethiopia need to explore how they can coordinate efforts to minimize flooding along the Nile River.  

Is South Sudan's Jonglei Canal Back on Track?

 The Associated Press published on 19 May 2022 an article titled "Century-old Canal Project Sparks Opposition in South Sudan" by Deng Machol.  

The government of South Sudan is considering revival of construction of the Jonglei Canal on the White Nile to prevent flooding and improve infrastructure.  It would also increase the volume of water reaching Sudan and Egypt.  But there is opposition to the project, which some believe to be a catastrophic environmental and social disaster for South Sudan's Sudd wetlands.  

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Questions Answered

 The Conversation published on 6 March 2022 a commentary titled "Nile Basin At a Turning Point As Ethiopian Dam Starts Operations" by John Mukum Mbaku, Weber State University.

The author answers 5 question about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile that is now operating one of its 13 turbines.

Comment:  The author makes a common mistake when he says that the Blue Nile provides more than 85 percent of the water that flows into the Nile River.  ALL Ethiopian tributaries contribute about 85 percent of the water reaching the White Nile or Nile Rivers.  The percentages vary from year to year, but the Blue Nile on average contributes 60 to 70 percent of the water flow.

Graphics of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and Nile Waters

 Reuters posted on 29 July 2021 an excellent series of graphics titled "Power Struggle" by Feilding Cage, Samuel Granadas, and Michael Ovaska.  It deals with the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and water flows throughout the Nile Basin.  

Water Wars and the Nile Basin

 US Arab Radio hosted a one hour podcast on 6 August 2021 titled "Water Wars: Death by Thirst or Death by Bullets?" hosted by Atef Abdel Gawad.

The panelists were Omer R. Ahmed, Ethiopian journalist and commentator on Africa; Mohamed Nasr Allam, Cairo University professor and Egypt's former minister of water resources and irrigation; Adel Darwish, British journalist and co-author of a book on water wars in the Middle East; and myself.

Most of the program focused on the Nile Basin and differences between Egypt and Ethiopia on the use of Nile water.  

The Nile Water Issue as Seen from South Sudan

 The South Sudan News Agency published on 25 April 2021 an analysis titled "Analyzing the Struggle over the Nile River: The Need for a New Legal Flexible Agreement" by Peter Reat Gatkouth.

The author argues that the Nile River basin's existing legal framework is inadequate to meet the needs of the Nile Basin countries.  The focus of the article is on the upstream states and the need for a Nile treaty that provides a fair distribution of water rights.  

Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan and Nile Water

Al Jazeera published on 6 February 2014 an article titled "Egypt and Ethiopia Face Off over Nile Water" by Hassen Hussein, assistant professor at St. Mary's University of Minnesota.  Hassen, a critic of Ethiopia's internal policies, argues that Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan should be more concerned about internal issues than conflict among each other. 

Sudan-South Sudan Border and Grazing Conflict

The border between Sudan and South Sudan is not fully delimited or demarcated.  It is highly militarized by numerous armed groups.  All along the border there is confusion about which administrative levels should control grazing routes.  Joshua Craze, PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, just released a paper titled "Dividing Lines: Grazing and Conflict along the Sudan-South Sudan Border" that looks at the issue through the lens of the 2011-2012 grazing season, the first since South Sudan's independence.  Seasonal pastoralist movements through the border regions are one of the central reasons for tension between the two states.

Turkish View of Nile Water Issues

Traditional reed boat on Blue Nile river. Flickr/Marta Semu

Turkey's Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies published on 7 June 2013 a brief analysis titled "Egypt, Ethiopia and Blue Nile." The author is Seyfi Kilic, a research specialist in the Water Research Program.  Although some of the English is a bit odd, it offers a useful analysis from a Turkish perspective.

Ethiopia's Renaissance Dam, Blue Nile Water Flow and Impact on Egypt

Writing for the Christian Science Monitor on 25 June 2013, William Davison produced an excellent analysis on the impact of filling the reservoir behind Ethiopia's Renaissance Dam, which is now under construction.

Rendition of Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam/Wikipedia

Titled "Will Ethiopia's 'Grand' New Dam Steal Nile Waters from Egypt?" the article addresses the critical issue that impacts Egypt:  how long will it take to fill the reservoir behind the Renaissance Dam and how much water will this process siphon off annually until the reservoir is filled.

Once the reservoir is filled, the Blue Nile flows as before with only an adjustment for evaporation from the reservoir.  But this could be an advantage because the rate of evaporation will be lower than if the water is stored in the much hotter area behind the Aswan High Dam.

For those of you interested in the technical aspects of this hugely important issue, I recommend a 2008 study titled "Sediment in the Nile River System" by Abdalla Abdelsalam Ahmed and Usama Hamid A.E. Ismail and a 2010 article in the Nile Basin Water Science and Engineering Journal titled "Investigation of Step Trends of the Nile River Flow Time Series" by Ageel I. Bushara and Tagreed Abdelrahim.  All of these authors are Sudanese.  They explain the importance of the variable flow of all Nile tributaries from one year to another and the timing of the high and low flows of the rivers.