Transboundary water resources “A comparative study”: The lessons learnt to help solve the Nile basin water conflict

Abstract

The problematic water situation in Egypt, as one of the River Nile basin countries, has been heightened by the harmful effects of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on Egypt’s share of the Nile water. In the light of this Egyptian attention was directed towards a study of worldwide transboundary water problems, in order to find the most effective methods for dealing successfully with water shortage problems in basin countries. The present study focuses on the most successful experiences in the management and development of international river basins worldwide, as well as studying the possibility of implementing these experiences in other basins, especially the River Nile basin. The study showed that overcoming the water scarcity problems in Egypt and increasing the Nile water yield for all the basin countries can be achieved, first of all through serious cooperation among all the basin countries for minimizing the huge water losses from the river (more than 1480 Billion Cubic Metres per year which represents roughly 90% of the whole basin income), and secondly to make use of the most successful technical and political experiences that have been implemented in other international river basins mentioned in the present study.

Keywords

• transboundary water
• overcoming water scarcity
• nile water losses