The impacts of Upper Blue Nile Dams construction on agricultural water availability of Sudan

Abstract

The objective of this research is assessing water resource availability in the Blue Nile River for different development scenarios using Mike Hydro modeling. The long term Blue Nile total irrigation water demand will be more than 46.67 × 109m3, which is nearly similar to the naturalized flow (around 48 × 109m3). In the phase II irrigation, water shortfalls increase to 0.38 × 109m3/year. There is up to 2.172 × 109m3/year irrigation water deficit at the full development level in Ethiopia. Due to flow regulation, there are no shortfalls in irrigation in Sudan in either the medium or the long-term. Dams located in Ethiopia give more advantage to the Sudanese schemes than that of Ethiopian regarding irrigation development.