Abstract
The Eastern Nile Basin (ENB) countries of Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, and
Ethiopia are subject to pronounced water, energy, and food (WEF)
insecurity problems. There is a need to manage the WEF nexus to meet
rapidly increasing demands, but this is extremely challenging due to
resource scarcity and climate change. If countries that rely on shared
transboundary water resources have contradictory WEF plans, that could
diminish the expected outcomes, both nationally and regionally. Egypt as
the downstream Nile country is concerned about ongoing and future
developments upstream, which could exacerbate Egypt’s water scarcity and
affect its ability to meet its WEF objectives. In this context, we
introduce a multi-model WEF framework that simulates the ENB’s water
resources, food production, and hydropower generation systems. The
models were calibrated and validated for the period 1983-2016, then
utilized to project a wide range of future development plans, up to
2050, using four performance measures to evaluate the WEF nexus. A
thematic pathway for regional development that showed high potential for
mutual benefits was identified. Results indicate that the ENB countries
could be nearly food self-sufficient before 2050 and generate an
additional 42000 GWh/yr of hydropower, with minimal impacts on Egypt’s
water scarcity problems. The WEF planning outcomes for the region are
sensitive to climate change, but, if social drivers can be managed
(e.g., by lowered population growth rates) despite the difficulties
involved, climate change impacts on WEF security could be less severe.