Nile River Basin modelling for water resources management – a literature review

Digna, Reem Fikri Mohamed Osman; Mohamed, Yasir A.; Zaag, Pieter van der; Uhlenbrook, Stefan; Corzo, Gerald

doi:10.1080/15715124.2016.1228656

Cited by 18 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 58 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the context of system analysis, the Eastern Nile River system, with its many reservoirs, can be defined as having multiple objectives, predominantly for hydropower and irrigation, constrained by conflictive objectives, and high upstream-downstream interdependencies [22]. Many scholars have applied different system optimization techniques to study the Eastern Nile River system, addressing the allocation of water from existing and planned dams among different users and riparian countries under different management options.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These methods include mathematically based (conventional optimization) techniques, such as Linear Programming (LP) [23,24], Nonlinear Programming (NLP) [12,[24][25][26][27][28][29], Dynamic Programming (DP) [10,[30][31][32], and computational intelligence techniques [33]. Digna et al [22] provided a comprehensive review on diverse Nile River Basin models and simulation techniques. The findings of these studies showed some discrepancies and common agreement on the impact of development of water resources infrastructures upstream in the Eastern Nile Basin on downstream hydropower generation and irrigation water supply.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Optimal Operation of the Eastern Nile System Using Genetic Algorithm, and Benefits Distribution of Water Resources Development

Digna

Castro-Gama

Zaag

et al. 2018

Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Eastern Nile Basin is facing a number of transboundary issues, including water resources development, and the associated impacts. The Nile Basin, particularly the Eastern Nile Sub-basin, is considered as one of a few international river systems of potential conflicts between riparian countries. The Eastern Nile is characterized by the high dependency of downstream countries on river water generated in upstream countries, with limited or no contribution to the runoff itself. The aim of this paper is to analyze optimal scenarios for water resources management in the Eastern Nile with regard to hydropower generation and irrigation development. A hydro-economic optimization model based on Genetic Algorithm has been used to determine the maximum benefits for two scenarios: (i) non-cooperative management of hydraulic infrastructure by the riparian countries (status quo), and (ii) cooperative water resources management among the riparian countries. The hydro-economic model is developed using a Genetic Algorithm and deterministic optimization approach covering all hydraulic infrastructures in the Eastern Nile, existing and planned, including the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). The results show that cooperative management yields an increase in hydro-energy returns for all countries compared to the status quo, with a very high increase in Ethiopian’s returns, as expected. Non-cooperative system management would negatively impact the hydro-energy of Egypt compared to the cooperative management (reduced by 11%), without a significant increase of hydro-energy for Ethiopia. For Sudan, the results show that hydropower generation benefits from the presence of GERD, in both management scenarios. Non-cooperative management of the system, along with the internal trade-off between irrigation and hydropower facilities, would negatively impact irrigation supply in Sudan. The findings support the argument of positive impact of GERD development on the three Eastern Nile riparian countries, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt, provided that the three countries agree to manage the system cooperatively.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal Operation of the Eastern Nile System Using Genetic Algorithm, and Benefits Distribution of Water Resources Development

Digna

Castro-Gama

Zaag

et al. 2018

Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As discussed, the authors believed that surrogate-based approaches offer an answer to filling the gap between complex environmental modeling and real-world management decision-making. Digna et al (2016) tried an effort to review previous studies on the Nile basin. According to studies from 1958 to 2016, they found that water resource development planning has attracted the most attention in comparison with improving the management of water reservoirs.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To address the problem of the lake water level, there are a variety of approaches that have been used by researchers in their studies. These approaches are as follows: hydrological data (Sowers et al, 2011), simulation (Khan et al, 2014;Digna et al, 2016;Tan et al, 2017;Hamidi-Razi et al, 2018), optimization (Wu et al, 2015;Digna et al, 2016;Li et al, 2018;Dessu et al, 2019), measuring tools (Islam et al, 2016), game theory (Xianshi, 2017) and scenario planning (Hamidi-Razi et al, 2018). Unfortunately, these approaches neither look at the issue systematically nor can they consider dynamism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A system dynamics approach for basin policy design: Urmia lake case study

Lari

Pishvaee²,

Khodabakhsh

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose Urmia lake water has impressively decreased recently and seriously endangered the lives of the inhabitants. In this paper, the effects of various factors on the reduction of the lake water are investigated and appropriate scenarios are proposed for future improvement. Due to the significant impact of agricultural issues on this crisis, this paper has focused specifically on agriculture. So, this paper aims to forecast and improve the lake water level. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, a system dynamics (SD) model, which is capable to consider various parameters and variables affecting the lake water level within nonlinear and dynamic relations, is developed. Findings To show the effectiveness of SD model, real data are used to run the model and the results show that the actual behavior of the lake water is reproduced with high validation (around 98.28 per cent). Also, five different scenarios are proposed to increase lake water volume. The hybrid Scenario 5 (which combines three other scenarios including increasing irrigation efficiency in the agricultural sector, changing cultivation pattern of agricultural products and returning some dams’ water that are consumed in the agricultural sector into the lake) is chosen as the most effective scenario for increasing lake volume about 15 billion m3. Originality/value The main contributions of this paper are systemic view to the whole problem, paying attention to the agriculture subject as one of the most important issues, considering many critical variables (e.g. evaporation, salinity and precipitation) and providing improvement policies along with assessing the effects of them.

show abstract

“…The runoff vulnerability to climate change was assessed using streamflow records [19], hydrological model outputs [29], projected precipitation, temperature [20,45,46], and the ET, and potential-ET (PET) variabilities [20]. To improve the seasonal and annual predictability of rainfall, runoff, and ET dynamics across the basin, the available in-situ observations were blended with satellite-derived hydrological data and LSMs outputs [18,24,42,47,48]. Further, several research studies have employed multisource remote sensing observations including precipitation [18,49,50], ET and moisture products [47,51,52], and gridded hydrological records [53][54][55] to understand the water resources potentials in the hydrologic source and sink areas [50], investigate the seasonal variability across the entire NRB [20,56,57], and individual hydrologic units, i.e., Lake Victoria [25,58] and the Blue Nile Basin (BNB) [51,55,59].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using GRACE/GRACE-FO, Data-Driven, and Modeling to Assess the Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Water Storage Changes in the Nile River Basin

Hasan¹,

Tarhule²,

Kirstetter³

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This research assesses the changes in the total water storage (TWS) during the twentieth century and their future projections in the Nile River Basin (NRB) via TWSA (TWS anomalies) records from GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), GRACE-FO (Follow-On), data-driven-reanalysis TWSA and land surface model (LSM), in association with precipitation, temperature records, and standard drought indicators. The analytical approach incorporates the development of 100+ yearlong TWSA records using a probabilistic conditional distribution fitting approach by the GAMLSS (Generalized Additive Model for Location, Scale, and Shape) model. The drought and flooding severity, duration, magnitude, frequencies, and recurrence were assessed during the studied period. The results showed, 1- The NRB between 2002 to 2020 has transited to substantial wetter conditions. 2- The TWSA reanalysis records between 1901 to 2002 revealed that the NRB had experienced a positive increase in TWS during the wet and dry seasons. 3- The projected TWSA between 2021 to 2050 indicated slight positive changes in TWSA during the rainy seasons. The analysis of drought and flooding frequencies between 1901 to 2050 indicated the NRB has ~64 dry-years compared to ~86 wet-years. The 100+ yearlong TWSA records assured that the NRB transited to wetter conditions relative to few dry spells. These TWSA trajectories call for further water resources planning in the region especially during flood seasons. This research contributes to the ongoing efforts to improve the TWSA assessment and its associated dynamics for transboundary river basins. It also demonstrates how an extended TWSA record provides unique insights for water resources management in the NRB and similar regions.

show abstract

Nile River Basin modelling for water resources management – a literature review

Cited by 18 publications

References 58 publications

Optimal Operation of the Eastern Nile System Using Genetic Algorithm, and Benefits Distribution of Water Resources Development

Optimal Operation of the Eastern Nile System Using Genetic Algorithm, and Benefits Distribution of Water Resources Development

A system dynamics approach for basin policy design: Urmia lake case study

Using GRACE/GRACE-FO, Data-Driven, and Modeling to Assess the Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Water Storage Changes in the Nile River Basin

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About