Cooperative adaptive management of the Nile river with climate and socio-economic uncertainties
Cooperative adaptive management of the Nile river with climate and socio-economic uncertainties
The uncertainties around the hydrological and socio-economic implications of climate change pose a challenge for Nile River system management, especially with rapidly rising demands for river-system-related services and political tensions between the riparian countries. Cooperative adaptive management of the Nile can help alleviate some of these stressors and tensions. Here we present 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. We demonstrate the utility of the framework by designing a cooperative adaptive management policy for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that balances the transboundary economic and biophysical interests of Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. This shows that if the three countries compromise cooperatively and adaptively in managing the dam, the national-level economic and resilience benefits are substantial, especially under climate projections with the most extreme streamflow changes.
48-57
Basheer, Mohammed
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Nechifor, Victor
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Calzadilla, Alvaro
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Gebrechorkos, Solomon
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Pritchard, David
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Forsythe, Nathan
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Gonzalez, Jose M.
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Sheffield, Justin
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Fowler, Hayley J.
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Harou, Julien J.
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9 January 2023
Basheer, Mohammed
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Nechifor, Victor
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Calzadilla, Alvaro
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Gebrechorkos, Solomon
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Pritchard, David
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Forsythe, Nathan
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Gonzalez, Jose M.
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Sheffield, Justin
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Fowler, Hayley J.
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Harou, Julien J.
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Basheer, Mohammed, Nechifor, Victor, Calzadilla, Alvaro, Gebrechorkos, Solomon, Pritchard, David, Forsythe, Nathan, Gonzalez, Jose M., Sheffield, Justin, Fowler, Hayley J. and Harou, Julien J.
(2023)
Cooperative adaptive management of the Nile river with climate and socio-economic uncertainties.
Nature Climate Change, 13, .
(doi:10.1038/s41558-022-01556-6).
Abstract
The uncertainties around the hydrological and socio-economic implications of climate change pose a challenge for Nile River system management, especially with rapidly rising demands for river-system-related services and political tensions between the riparian countries. Cooperative adaptive management of the Nile can help alleviate some of these stressors and tensions. Here we present 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. We demonstrate the utility of the framework by designing a cooperative adaptive management policy for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that balances the transboundary economic and biophysical interests of Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. This shows that if the three countries compromise cooperatively and adaptively in managing the dam, the national-level economic and resilience benefits are substantial, especially under climate projections with the most extreme streamflow changes.
Text
s41558-022-01556-6
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 10 November 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 9 January 2023
Published date: 9 January 2023
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
M.B.’s doctoral degree is funded by the Faculty of Science and Engineering of the University of Manchester. This work was supported by the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council (grant no. ES/P011373/1) as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund through the ‘Future Design and Assessment of water-energy-food-environment Mega Systems’ (FutureDAMS) research project to J.J.H., V.N., A.C., S.G., D.P., N.F., J.S. and H.J.F. We thank GAMS Software GmbH for providing licences for mathematical solvers compatible with parallel processing used for economy-wide simulation on supercomputers. We acknowledge the use of the Computational Shared Facility and High-Performance Computing of the University of Manchester. The views expressed in this paper are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of their institutions.
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 477412
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/477412
ISSN: 1758-678X
PURE UUID: 7f8f936c-9ed9-4785-aef1-b6497be977e9
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Date deposited: 06 Jun 2023 16:52
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:51
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Contributors
Author:
Mohammed Basheer
Author:
Victor Nechifor
Author:
Alvaro Calzadilla
Author:
David Pritchard
Author:
Nathan Forsythe
Author:
Jose M. Gonzalez
Author:
Hayley J. Fowler
Author:
Julien J. Harou
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