Top Down GERD grand Ethiopia renaissance dam

• GERD


  • The dam is about 15 km from the border with neighbouring Sudan
  • The dam has the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa, and in the top 20 largest dams in the world
  • The filling of the reservoir began in July 2020 and will take between 5 and 15 years to fill
  • The GERD began generating electricity in February 2020
  • The reservoir behind the dam will have a surface area of 1,874 km2
• Funding of the GERD

  • The Ethiopian government intends to fund the entire cost of the dam by itself, preventing reliance on foreign countries. The estimated $5 billion construction cost equals about 7% of Ethiopia's 2016 GDP.
  • The hydropower turbines and other electrical equipment (transmission lines) costing about US$ 1 billion were financed by the Exim Bank of China.
• Benefits of the GERD

  • A major benefit of the dam will be Hydro Electric Power (HEP) generation
  • All the clean energy generated by GERD will be go into Ethiopia's national distribution grid to support the development of the whole country, both in rural and urban areas
  • Creating 5.15 gigawatts – it will double Ethiopia's energy capacity and the dam will be the largest in Africa
• The Blue Nile is a highly seasonal river


  The dam would reduce flooding downstream of the dam, including on the 15 km stretch within Ethiopia
• Reduction of flooding downstream

  • Beneficial since it protects settlements from flood damage
  • Harmful if flood recession agriculture is practised in the river valley downstream of the dam since it deprives fields from being watered
• The next water regulating dam in Sudan, the Roseires Dam, sits only a few dozens of kilometres downstream of the GERD
• The GERD could also serve as a bridge across the Blue Nile, complementing a bridge that was under construction in 2009 further upstream
• An independent assessment estimated that at least 5,110 people will be resettled from the reservoir and downstream area, and the dam is expected to lead to a significant change in the fish ecology
• According to an independent researcher who conducted research in the area, 20,000 people are being relocated
• A solid plan is in place for the relocated people and those who have already been resettled were given more than they expected in compensation
• Locals have never seen a dam before and are not completely sure what a dam actually is, despite community meetings in which affected people were informed about the impacts of the dam on their livelihoods
• Except for a few older people, almost all locals interviewed expressed hope that the project brings something of benefit to them in terms of education and health services or electricity supply based on the information available to them
• At least some of the new communities for those relocated will be downstream of the dam
• The area around the reservoir will consist of a 5 km buffer zone for malaria control that will not be available for settlement
• In at least some upstream areas erosion control measures will be undertaken to reduce siltation of the reservoir
• In 2013 only 12-15% of Ethiopian people had access to electricity
• Only 2% of the rural population had access to electricity
• The precise impact of the dam on the downstream countries is not known
• Egypt fears a temporary reduction of water availability due to the filling of the reservoir and a permanent reduction because of evaporation from the reservoir
• Studies indicate that the primary factors which will govern the impacts during the reservoir filling phase include the initial reservoir elevation of the Aswan High Dam, the rainfall that occurs during the filling period and the negotiated arrangement between the three countries
• These studies also show that only through close and continuous coordination, the risks of negative impacts can be minimised or eliminated
• The reservoir volume (74 cubic kilometres) is about 1.5 times the average annual flow (49 cubic kilometres) of the Blue Nile at the Egypt–Sudan border
• This loss to downstream countries could be spread over several years if the countries reach an agreement
• Depending on the initial storage in the Aswan High Dam and this filling schedule of the GERD, flows into Egypt could be temporarily reduced, which may affect the livelihood of two million farmers during the period of filling the reservoir
• Allegedly, it would also affect Egypt's electricity supply by 25 to 40 percent, while the dam is being built
• Hydropower accounts for less than 12 per cent of total electricity production in Egypt in 2010 (14 out of 121 billion kWh), so that a temporary reduction of 25 per cent in hydropower production translates into an overall temporary reduction in Egyptian electricity production of less than 3 per cent
• The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam could also lead to a permanent lowering of the water level in Lake Nasser if floods are stored instead in Ethiopia
• This would reduce the current evaporation of more than 10 cubic kilometres per year, but it would also reduce the ability of the Aswan High Dam to produce hydropower to the tune of a 100 MW loss of generating capacity for a 3 m reduction of the water level
• However, the increased storage in Ethiopia can provide a greater buffer to shortages in Sudan and Egypt during years of future drought, if the countries can reach a compromise
• The dam will retain silt. It will thus increase the useful lifetime of dams in Sudan – such as the Roseires Dam, the Sennar Dam and the Merowe Dam – and of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt
• The beneficial and harmful effects of flood control would affect the Sudanese portion of the Blue Nile, just as it would affect the Ethiopian part of the Blue Nile valley downstream of the dam
• The GERD would reduce seasonal flooding of the plains surrounding the reservoir of the Roseires Dam located at Ad-Damazin, just as the Tekeze Dam, by retaining a reservoir in the deep gorges of the northern Ethiopian Highlands, had reduced flooding at Sudan's Khashm el-Girba Dam
• The reservoir, located in the temperate Ethiopian Highlands and up to 140 m deep, will experience considerably less evaporation than downstream reservoirs such as Lake Nasser in Egypt, which loses 12% of its water flow due to evaporation as the water sits in the lake for 10 months
• Through the controlled release of water from the reservoir to downstream, this could facilitate an increase of up to 5% in Egypt's water supply, and presumably that of Sudan as well