RIVER GRANTED HUMAN RIGHTS in Newzeland and india

Three Maps Show How Water Access Can Make Or Break A Nation - ValueWalk

Access to and control over water is a strategic imperative for all countries. As such, it has been a source of conflict throughout history.

 Water access can impact a country’s geopolitics in many ways. The first (and one of the most obvious) is sea access. Access to the world’s oceans enables a country to use major maritime shipping routes. It also opens an additional route by which a country could project force by having a navy.

The need to gain and maintain ocean access can lead to war. One major factor in the War of the Pacific in South America (1879-1883) was control over access to the southern Pacific. Bolivia lost its ocean access as a result of this war, and to this day, continues to seek ways to recover it.

A more current example is Russia’s invasion of Crimea. The goal here was to create a larger buffer around Russian naval facilities in Sevastopol.

The Mighty Mississippi

Access to waterways also clearly impacts trade. Rivers provide cheaper means of shipping goods to port for export. This makes a country’s exports more competitive.

I’ve written extensively about US strategy as it applies to water access in This Week in Geopolitics (subscribe here for free). One of the most strategic riverways in the world is the Mississippi River system in the US.

Two great rivers, the Missouri and the Ohio, flow into the Mississippi. This river system is navigable and empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

This waterway allows virtually any part of the land between the Rockies and Appalachians to ship goods inexpensively through this river system and on to other countries.

In this case, the US acquired these lands primarily through the Louisiana Purchase. That was followed by a war with Mexico and the annexation of Texas. This led to the expansion of a buffer zone to the west of the Mississippi River.

The Nile

Rivers can also be sources of power in terms of relations between states. This is the case with the Nile River.

Approximately 85% of all water reaching the Nile River in Egypt originates in Ethiopia from the Blue Nile, Atbara, and Sobat rivers. Of these rivers, the most important is the Blue Nile. It accounts for nearly 60% of the Nile’s water in Egypt.

Given that Egypt is mostly a desert climate, the country depends on the river for water and agriculture. At present, Egypt has concerns over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (which should be operational this year). Any moves made by Ethiopia that affect water flow or quality could jeopardize water access downstream.

So far, this concern has been dealt with through diplomacy. But in the mid-1870s, the Khedevite of Egypt invaded Ethiopia via Eritrea in an attempt to gain control of the Nile River. This war lasted for two years.

Syria’s Droughts

The absence of water can indirectly lead to conflict. This map shows areas in Syria where there were six or more years of drought from 2000 to 2010. Prolonged droughts can destroy a region’s agriculture and livestock, exposing local food supplies to great risk.

The Islamic State took control of some of this territory only a few years after the drought. The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction published a study in 2011 that looked at this drought. The report implies that social and economic ruin caused by drought contributed to the rise of IS.

Historians have also noted a correlation between major famine due to drought in Ethiopia and the fall of regimes, such as the Derg.

While drought in these cases did not serve as a direct trigger for observed violence, there is a strong correlation between the absence of water and social and economic instability.

The Importance of Access

Water has an underlying geopolitical importance. Access and control over this feature can provide strategic standing to a country. In some cases, it can even enhance this standing in terms of military projection, trade, domestic stability, and leverage over other countries. For this reason, water can be a great source of conflict among nations… conflict that has the potential to rise to the level of warfare.

Somalia President scotches claims over Shabelle River closure

: "Somalia President scotches claims over Shabelle River closure

MOGADISHU, Somalia-Ethiopian authorities cannot stop the flow of Shabelle river water into downstream Somalia, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told VOA Somali Service. 

Mohamud made remarks in Washington after reports of large scale water diversion in the Somali region of Ethiopia surfaced.  

Somali President added that it is not possible for Ethiopia to make overutilization upstream at the expense of Somalia in line with international water principles. 

Last month, Shabelle River that is dependent on runoffs of Ethiopian highlands dried up, and prompted debates on whether water resource projects in Ethiopia could be the reason.  

Somalia will be investigating the matter, Mohamud disclosed.  

Thousands of farmers in central and southern Somalia use Shabelle and Juba Rivers water for irrigation.  

El Nino-induced drought and severe water shortages have affected considerable swathes in Somalia for months.

GAROWEONLINE"



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Is It Possible for Egypt and Ethiopia to Share the Nile? | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2016 5:12 AM 4 COMMENTS

Author:

Daniel Pipes

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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Oil is the Middle East’s glamor product, sought after by the entire world and bringing the region wealth beyond the dream of avarice. But water is the mundane resource that matters even more to locals for, without it, they face the horrible choice of leaving their homes or perishing within them.

That choice may sound hyperbolic, but the threat is real. Egypt stands out as having the largest population at risk and being the country, other than Iraq and Yemen, with the most existential hydrologic problem.

As every schoolchild learns, Egypt is the gift of the Nile and the Nile is by far the globe’s longest river. Less well known is that most of the Nile’s volume, 90 percent, comes from the highlands of Ethiopia and that the river passes through 11 countries. For uncounted eons, its water flowed to Egypt in uncounted quantities.

In 1929, the British government, representing Egypt, signed an agreement with the independent government of Ethiopia guaranteeing an annual flow of 55.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of water to Egypt. Counting a minimum of 1,000 cubic meters per capita per annum (the average worldwide is 7,230 cubic meters), that amount more than sufficed for the 15 million Egyptians of the day.

The succeeding 87 years saw Egypt’s population increase six times until today it numbers 90 million. Adding to the river’s 55.5 bcm, Egypt gets about 5 bcm from non-renewable underground sources and 1.3 bcm from rain, leaving it with about 62 bcm a year, or one-third less than the country’s minimal needs. In addition, Egyptians recycle about 10 bcm of agricultural runoff water, whose highly polluted nature (fertilizer and insecticide residues) eventually kill the land by salinizing it. Exacerbating this shortage, Egypt’s high temperatures leads to higher rates of evapotranspiration, requiring more water for agriculture than in places with cooler climates.

This water shortfall translates into a need to import food and, at present, Egypt must borrow funds to import an alarming 32 percent of its sugar needs, 60 percent of yellow feed corn, 70 percent of wheat, 70 percent of beans, 97 percent of food oil, and 100 percent of lentils. The need to import will get worse with time; estimating Egypt’s population at 135 million in 2050, it will need 135 bcm annually and, based on present assumptions, the water deficit will more than double to 75 bcm.

Making matters worse, Ethiopians recently woke up to the fact that vast quantities of water leave their territories without any benefit to themselves. Accordingly, they initiated a network of dams, culminating with the pompously named Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

As presently planned, the lake behind this dam would hold 74.5 bcm, plus 5 bcm would be lost through seepage and 5 bcm lost to evaporation. Four auxiliary upstream dams to reduce silting will retain another 200 bcm. Noting that 86 percent of Egypt’s water originates in Ethiopia, Egyptian specialists not unreasonably conclude that the allotted 55.5 bcm would not be forthcoming. Nader Noureddin, professor of soil and water sciences at Cairo University, sees the dams placing “the lives of 90 million Egyptians at risk.” (Most statistics in this analysis derive from Noureddin’s work.)

Ethiopians reply: Not to worry, all will be fine, the guaranteed allotment and more will reach Egypt. When Cairo protests nonetheless, Addis Ababa agrees to one study after another, even as it furiously builds the GERD, which is scheduled to begin operations in 2016, storing an initial 14 bcm.

The potential for disruption is enormous; in 2013, during the Mohamed Morsi era, Egyptian politiciansinadvertently bruited in public their military plans about special forces, jet fighters, and rebel groups to deal with the GERD (shades of the opera Aïda). Morsi now sits in jail but such ideas offer insight into Egyptian desperation.

At base, the Nile River confrontation lies in variant understandings of water possession. Downstream states like Egypt point to the immemorial nature of rivers flowing across borders. Upstream states like Ethiopia point to the water belonging to them in the same way that oil belongs to the Arabs. There is no right or wrong here; resolution requires creative compromise (for example, by lowering the height of GERD saddle dams), allowing the Ethiopians to benefit from their waters without Egyptians facing cataclysm.

Short term, statesmen are needed to prevent disaster. Long term, Egyptians need to learn how to manage water more resourcefully.

Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan ministers to meet Sunday | Egypt Independent

Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan ministers to meet Sunday

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Sat, 26/12/2015 - 13:29

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Al-Masry Al-Youm

A six-party meeting of Foreign and Irrigation ministers from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, will begin on Sunday amid fears of repeating previous negotiation failures.

The three countries hope to agree on the issues related to the studies done on the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

The three parties are looking to sign a document that governs the results of the studies, in order to ensure they are committed to negotiations following the announcement of these results.

Official Egyptian sources said the six-party meeting will occur amid political conditions that urge the three countries to reach a compromise in order to meet the aspirations of the countries' peoples with regards to development.

The ministers of the three countries are resolved to ending the controversy and tension which have been ongoing for the past five years, ever since the foundations for the Renaissance Dam were laid in 2011. Tensions could enter a new phase next year, as Ethiopia plans to conclude the first phase of the project and announce the storing of 14 billion cubic meters of the Nile water, the sources added.

The next meeting seeks to develop an appropriate mechanism for the road map to activate the agreement of principles on the ground, especially those related to the fifth item of the agreement which governs the start and duration of water storage in the dam throughout the year, said Water Resources Minister Hossam Moghazi.

A mechanism to respond to Egyptian concerns will be developed during the meeting, said Moghazi, stressing that the six-party meeting will complete the final version for the road map agreed upon in Khartoum, as well as Malabo's statement.

Once the three countries agree on the points of contention, the six-party meeting's role will end. Substantive technical negotiations will then begin, said Moghazi, stressing that negotiations are the only means to end the dispute on the technical studies of the dam.

The Nile Basin challenges and opportunities - Sudan Tribune: Plural news and views on Sudan

By Mohamed Yassin

The Nile Basin is an extended unique and rich territory in the African continent, which extends over diverse climatic regimes. Currently, the Nile basin is hosting almost half billion inhabitants (more than 42% of the African total population) and projected to double its populations in a rapid pattern within this century to reach around half of the continent projected population. The Nile Basin is endowed with significant natural resources and considerable biodiversity heritage. The Nile Basin has been and continues to host important civilizations and natural biospheres. The current political composition of the Nile Basin is eleven sovereign riparian states, namely Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Each of those riparian states has its own challenges and opportunities in terms of proper development, socioeconomic growth and prosperity. Ideally, each riparian can address its own challenges and harvest its untapped opportunities, but in reality each one is interdependent and interconnected with the other adjacent or non-adjacent riparian states in a way or another.

The Nile River is the common binding natural resources for all that countries and historically has been a founding fountain of livelihood for all within the Nile Basin and continue to be an important connection with Mediterranean and Asian populations and rest of the world. These countries have embarked in international and transboundary cooperation and dialogue for the water management, usage and development through diverse fora such as the Nile Basin Initiative with its secretariat in Uganda, Entebbe and the subsidiary offices in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa and Rwanda, Kigali. However, most of those efforts were limited only on conflictive focus on the water in separation from the rest of the ecological base and foundation and the supplementary tangible and intangible resources necessary for sustaining a sustainable livelihood in a comprehensive setting. Historically the management of Nile Basin resources have been managed in cooperative and competitive styles depending on epochal phases.

In the contemporary situation, these riparian countries need to have cooperative and sound competitive concerted and coordinated actions. That is a must need to foster the socio-economic development and its sustainability. Of course, each riparian country needs to reconcile its developmental needs and priorities with that of sister riparian country. Any unilateral actions to exploit monopolize the sharable benefits from the River Nile and its ecosystems will results in harmful impacts and outcomes for the very and single actor. It will be impossible for a single riparian country to monopolize the benefits and have the lion share of the River Nile, what so ever it is, unless the riparian countries merge in single institutional body united under the Nile Basin, for example an imaginable and possible the Nile Basin Community. That unionistic and mutualistic transformation might results in more beneficial, supportive, consolidating and solidarity spirit among the integrateable territories of the Nile Basin. All the Nile Basin riparian states as the rest of the planet are facing the challenge of how to reconcile the sustainable development and prosperity with the nature conservations and environmental protection.

The cooperation, collaboration and coordination of the sustainable management of the Nile Basin territorial capital, goes beyond a mandate of single line ministry of irrigation and water resources. A shift to a more inclusive, comprehensive, holistic and participatory approaches are imperative needs for all the Nile Basin community and that shoulders huge responsibilities on those who are currently leading the policy making and formulating the regional planning for the populations of the Nile Basin. All the Nile Basin states have a non-disputable right to carry on its national and strategic developmental short, medium and long terms plans and visions. All are facing challenging and complex food and nutrition security issues dictated by limited resources and growing demography, environmental and climate related challenges coupled with undergoing processes of industrialization and exploitation of the natural endowments, conservation of heritage and erection of infrastructures to sustain the territorial, socio-economic transformation and political stability and dynamics.

If we consider the infrastructures for the hydropower production and distribution, irrigation and resource management needed to boost the sustainable development in the Blue and Eastern Nile countries, namely Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan, comprehensively we can count around fifteen existing hydropower projects. With diverse developmental status among and within these four riparian countries, and if we go further deeper and extract the planned hydropower projects featuring in their national plans, we will notice that there are around twenty five, more or less new hydropower projects to be erected (See attached maps of the Nile Basin Initiative) to guarantee power security and socio-economic development and stability.

The current dispute and conflictive atmosphere created upon the under construction Millennium or Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is just one spot in the wider developmental scenario which will be witnessed in that Eastern Nile Region. Ethiopia is naturally gifted and endowed with considerable magnitude of water and high lands which qualify it to be an important Hydropower production hub, which can secure its energy needs and goes beyond to supply the region. At the same time, other parts of the region have its endowments which are not equally available among the Ethiopian natural capital and that could be compensate through analogues regional trade (Theory of comparative advantage and international trade can apply and fit the situation).

If we consider the Newly independent republic of South Sudan, we notice that currently it has zero hydropower plant and in its national strategic plans, it is qualified to erect around four hydropower projects which are Fula, Shukoli, Lakki and Bedden, and Sudan has plans to erect numerous new dams in addition to the newly terminated Morowe dam, these are Dal Low and Dal High, Kagbar, Dagash, Shereik and Sabaloka dams. While Egypt has a planned new dam at Assiut / Asyut. Doubtless, the erection of all that planned hydropower plants and projects will have huge socio-economic, environmental, ecological, landscape and territorial transformations and impacts, negative be it or positive. Surely that makes the cooperation among these directly engaged riparian countries as well as the rest of the Nile Basin Countries an non escapable necessity.

The future scenarios require frank dialogue and courageous confrontations putting a Nile Basin integrated community as top priority to address the current and latent challenges and at the same time work collectively to share the potential benefits of the expected positive and contractive transformation.

Mohamed Yassin is a Sudanese and Italian PhD candidate (2013-2015) in Economics, Ecology, Landscape and Territory at the Department of Civil Engineering & Architecture, University of Udine, Italy. He holds B.Sc. in Agricultural and Rural Economy (UoK Sudan), PGD in Rural development in Developing countries, PGD in International Development Cooperation, Masters in International Business Import Export Management and a M.Sc. in International Veterinary Cooperation (Italy). He has been visiting scholar at the University of Minnesota (USA) where he conducted research works on the Nile Basin. He is reachable at E: mohamed.yassin@uniud.it E: yassintowers@gmail.com

China funds cross-border water project between Djibouti and Ethiopia - YouTube

China funds cross-border water project between Djibouti and Ethiopia - YouTube: ""



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