Water Consumption by Hydropower, Does It Worth Allocation under Ethiopian Context

Abstract

The Ethiopian water policy strictly follows water allocation as a principle in setting out water consumption problems and demand projection. Hydroelectric power plants supply the larger share (88%) of the electricity in Ethiopia. 86% of Ethiopia's plan to 2020 energy supply is expected to be from hydropower. This paper defines water consumption in hydropower production as the quantity of water that leaves the analyzed projects (reservoir regulated hydropower projects) through evaporation. Water consumed by hydropower development has never been studied at a country scale. Thus, in attempting to understand water consumption by the hydropower development, this study will be the first to acknowledge the water consumption by all storage regulated hydropower plants developed in Ethiopia. While studying and designing reservoir regulated hydropower production, the overall effect of water consumption by the projects is assumed to be minimal; thus ignoring water allocation to hydropower projects is a common procedure in Ethiopia. In this study, for multipurpose projects, to identify the water consumption by hydropower against the other purpose (irrigation) consumption, water consumption factors based on economic benefits were used. The study has shown that the 14 existing and under construction reservoir regulated hydropower projects will consume 1.881 billion m 3 of water annually. This will make hydropower the second most water consuming water resource development next to Irrigation in the country. Together with the 22 upcoming projects the water consumption will be 3.756 billion m 3 /year. The results also show that hydropower consumption in the country will take an average of 2.41% of the total water stored in a reservoir. This value is in the range of nearly zero for power projects that use natural lakes as their reservoir (Tana Beles, Tis Abay I & II) and GERD to 10.64%. The total reservoir volume that will be created in the country after completion of the 22 planned projects is larger than 233 BCM, which is greater than the surface water volume the country possesses. This indicates that the future water consumption by hydropower plants shall How to cite this paper: Nurhusein, M.M. (2020) Water Consumption by Hydropower, Does It Worth Allocation under Ethiopian Context. Journal of Water Resource and Protectionbe revised in accordance with changes made in the final design of each planned projects. Nonetheless, this research provides scientific support for the argument that the production of hydroelectricity by reservoir regulated hydropower schemes, in countries like Ethiopia, is a water consumer. Thus, water allocation shall not ignore its demand.

Economic Valuation of Lake Tana: A Recreational Use Value Estimation through the Travel Cost Method

“…The demand equation can also be expressed in exponential form, as shown in Equations ( 6) and (7) for the initial lake level and following some quality improvements.…”

“…Lake Tana's condition is in rapid decline as it struggles to accommodate population-and climate-driven pressures [2][3][4][5]. Unfortunately, the attention paid to the lake's overall benefits and sustainability is far from what is expected; research so far has mainly focused on its hydrological and ecological aspects, with much less emphasis being placed upon the lake's economic aspects and recreational benefits [6][7][8].…”

“…Availing TEV through assessing the lake's recreational use value will result in a better understanding of the total value provided by the lake [24][25][26], allowing for more effective and sustainable resource use and management [12,15,19]. More importantly, the recreational services related to Lake Tana are non-rivalry services and hence do not compete with other water uses [6,7,[27][28][29].…”

Estimating the recreational use value of Tis-Abay Waterfall in the upstream of the Blue Nile River, North-West Ethiopia

“…Despite the large recreational and economic potential, the flow of the water within the Blue Nile watercourse has been changed by other competing uses. The Chara-Chara weir on the outlet of the watercourse from Lake Tana and diversions to the nearby Tis-Abay hydropower stations have impacted the natural flow of the water ( McCartney et al, 2010 ; Nurhusein, 2020 ). The construction of the electric power generating plants and the diversion of the natural water path on the waterfall's upper course has significantly lowered the volume of the water flowing over the Tis-Abay Waterfall.…”

“…Therefore, the study's objective is to estimate the Tis-Abay Waterfall's recreational use-value and identify the consumer characteristics associated with recreational visits based on actual and hypothetical visitor behavior using the ITCM ( Torres-Ortega et al, 2018 ). While there is some prior research on the water flow of the site ( McCartney et al, 2010 ; Nurhusein, 2020 ), no study has investigated the recreational value of the waterfall based on individual visitors' behavior or sought to estimate welfare measures through a reliable methodical approach, modeling, and estimation process ( Haab and McConnell, 2002 ; Hanley et al, 2009 ; Tesfaye et al, 2016 ). Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in Ethiopia to integrate standard ITCM with augmented ITCM in the valuation of a recreation site ( Alberini and Longo, 2006 ; Filippini et al, 2018 ).…”