Development - cooperation

It is clear that having access to safe and adequate water supply, reliable energy source and improved food security are the bottom line for any development endeavor. These three sectors are so interlinked and complex that critical and in-depth analyses need to be done. The Nexus of the three needs to be established in such a way that the hidden connections are well understood. The core of the matter is that we should avoid costly trade-offs and bad investments, protect the public from unintended side effects of uninformed decisions, use the opportunities properly, and can make the synergy of the three sectors more balanced and sustainable. However, developing methodologies and analytical tools for assessing impacts that emerge from decisions taken in the area of water, food, energy and ecosystems are more challenging.

KEYWORD: ACEWATER2, EIWR ...

Among the multiple challenges The Blue Nile Basin (BNB) poses, figures boldly the impact of land use on the Water Quality. Consequently, the impact produced on human health as a result of water quality deterioration is a cause for high concern. Therefore, in anticipation of a sound methodology for the assessment of the change made to the state of water quality and the impact on public health produced by water quality deterioration, a team of experts of the Ethiopian Institute of water resources proposed the Integrated Analytical Framework (IAF).This tool innovatively integrates three well-known frameworks: The Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework; the Systems Approach Framework and the Social-Ecological Systems Framework. This methodological approach is envisaged to provide an interdisciplinary and broad platform for the investigation of the ecological dysfunction of the aquatic ecosystem in the basin, land use pattern that caused the water quality deterioration and the impact on public health. The methodology allows for large stakeholders engagement in identifying the issue of concern and collectively finding solutions for the problem through a series of consultative and deliberative workshops where scenario simulations are carried out.

Blue Nile River is the main source of the water for hundreds of millions of people in Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt in the Nile River basin with a drainage area of 324,530 km2 (Peggy and Curtis, 1994). The Upper Blue basin is 176,000 km2 in area (Conway, 2000) and it is the largest of Ethiopian basins in terms of volume of discharge. The primary tributaries in Ethiopia are the Besheilo, Welaka, Jemma, Muger, Guder, Finchaa, Anger, Didessa and Dabus on the left bank and the North Gojam, South Gojam, Wombera and Beles on the right bank (McCartney and Girma, 2012). The topography is dominated by an altitude ranging from 485 meters to more than 4257 meters.

The WACONI is a research collaboration project between Addis Ababa University, ICPAC, Makerere University and University of Khartoum and supported by the European Union Joint
Research Center (JRC). The general objective of WACONI is to assess WEFE interdependencies across the Nile River Basin, with a particular focus on the Blue Nile Basin and the Lake Victoria Basin. Based on IGAD strategies and priorities and supported by AMCOW (declaration GA/10/2016/Dar/14) in the frame of the ACEWATER2 project, the following areas of scientific investigation relevant to WEFE nexus analysis have been identified:
1. Climate variability and extreme events
2. Hydrology, water balance and hydropower
3. Water and livelihood: agricultural water, health, quality, access, resilience

This Inception report addresses work under hydrology, water balance and Hydropower topic.

A growing body of knowledge recognizes that the water resources in the Lake Victoria Basin (LVB) are increasingly stressed by global environmental change threatening the survivability of the vulnerable inhabitant population and the ecosystems (Kashaigili et al., 2015; López-Carr et al., 2016; Onyutha et al., 2016). A range of degradative processes signified by insitu unsustainable land use practices, declining water quality, high runoff and soil losses (Lufafa et al., 2003; Majaliwa, 2005) beyond the tolerable levels (< 5 t/ha/yr), land use and land transformations largely conversions from natural cover to small holder farming, increased rural urban transformations, exsitu sediment and nutrient loading into streams and Lakes all contribute to altering the horizontal and vertical water dynamic affecting the biogeochemistry, the ecosystem services and overall livelihoods systems and structures. Consequently, the LVB region is reported to be highly degraded.

The project “The African Networks of Centres of Excellence on Water Sciences PHASE II (ACE WATER 2)” aims at fostering sustainable capacity development at scientific, technical and institutional level in the water sector. The project supports twenty (20) AU-NEPAD African Network of Centres of Excellence in Water Sciences and Technology (CoEs) organized in three regional networks, in conducting high-end scientific research on water and related sectors, in order to provide effective scientific and educational support to governments. The project is implemented in partnership between UNESCO, in charge of the human capacity development component, and the JRC that coordinates the scientific component and leads the project.