Ethiopia has announced plans to construct three new dams on the Blue Nile, the main tributary of the Nile River, sparking anger in Egypt, where there is concern that the projects will further increase water shortages when they begin operating. Addis Ababa has already invited companies with a proven record in dam construction to submit their tenders for the construction of the three dams in the coming period.
The three dams, the Ethiopian government says, will be constructed within four to seven years and will be able to start operating simultaneously.
Costing $3.5 billion each, the three projects will aim to enhance Ethiopia's water and power capabilities and upgrade its renewable energy sector in line with its national sustainable economic development plan, according to the Ethiopian government.
When operational, the three dams will increase Ethiopia's electricity generation by 20-25%, improve the country's water management in the Horn of Africa, and boost its industrial and agricultural production, the government says.
Nevertheless, the same projects will exacerbate Egypt's water scarcity problem by reducing the flow of Nile River water to the downstream state and consequently increase tensions between Cairo and Addis Ababa, Egyptian specialists said.
Abbas Sharaky, a professor of water resources at Cairo University, described the planned construction of the three dams as portending "radical change" in the management of the Blue Nile's waters.
"These dams will increase water scarcity in Egypt in a serious manner," Professor Sharaky said.
Speaking to The New Arab , he added that the three new dams would also significantly increase Ethiopia's water storage capacity, which would, in the end, give the Horn of Africa state total control over the flow of the Nile's water to downstream states.
"Apart from reducing the flow of the river's water to Egypt, the three new dams will make the High Dam in southern Egypt less capable of generating electricity," Professor Sharaky said.
"This will translate into a reduction in electricity generation in Egypt and economic losses," he added. Critical timing Egypt is water-poor already, with the North African country's annual Nile water share, its principal fresh water asset, covering only a fraction of its needs. Ethiopia's plan to further dam the Nile comes amid heightened tensions with Cairo, with the two sides locked in a dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Ethiopia's gigantic hydroelectric power project on the Blue Nile.
The GERD, now operational after over a decade of construction, keeps sizeable amounts of water from flowing to Egypt , threatening the populous North African country's water supply, agriculture and development aspirations, drawing criticism and accusations from Cairo and stoking tensions with it.
Egypt, which relies on the Nile River for 98% of its freshwater needs, is trying to adapt to the limits the GERD has imposed on its Nile water supply by investing heavily in sewage treatment, seawater desalination, and consumption rationalisation.
In the past decade, the Egyptian government has invested billions of dollars in the construction of wastewater treatment and seawater desalination plants across the country.
Egypt is also rationalising water consumption for agricultural use by introducing modern irrigation technologies and overhauling its network of agricultural irrigation canals.
These tactics have partly offset the loss of water from the river due to the GERD, even as Egypt's water needs keep growing as its population blooms, specialists said.
"The measures taken by the government in the past years have contributed to mitigating effects from the dam," independent water expert Noureddine Abdelmonem told TNA .
He expressed concern, however, over what he described as the "unilateral" management of the dam.
This management, he said, has opened the door to the uncontrolled discharge of water from the river, causing problems in Egypt and Sudan, including flooding and economic losses on some occasions in recent years.
Egypt, which receives 55.5 billion cubic metres of water from the Nile annually under a 1959 agreement, sustained losses of around 38 billion cubic metres of water as the GERD's reservoir, larger than the Greater London area, was filled between 2020 and 2022, according to the Egyptian government.
In January this year, Egyptian Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Hani Sweillam demanded compensation from Ethiopia for the loss of water. Deadlock Tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia over the GERD are rooted in the strong effects the dam has on Egypt's water supply, what Egypt describes as Ethiopia's unilateral construction of the dam, the filling of its reservoir and the failure of negotiations between the two sides to reach a contractual agreement on the operation of the dam.
Almost a decade of negotiations between Cairo and Addis Ababa, which also included Khartoum, produced nothing as Egypt accused the Ethiopians of wasting time until the dam became an irreversible fact on the ground.
The dam is also coming amid complex geopolitical tensions between Cairo and Addis Ababa, with Egypt accusing Ethiopia of using the dam as a pressure card to increase its regional leverage and as a bargaining chip to gain access to the Red Sea.
Egypt has vehemently opposed Ethiopia's presence in the Red Sea, viewing Ethiopia's drive to establish a naval presence along the coast of the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland as a direct threat to its national security and the Suez Canal.
Such fears are militarising the tension over the GERD and Ethiopia's Red Sea quest, with Egypt dispatching troops to Somalia and hammering out a series of common defence pacts and military cooperation agreements with Ethiopia's neighbouring countries.
These pacts and agreements, observers said, all aim to impose what is believed to be an Egyptian encirclement of Ethiopia to rein in its Red Sea ambitions and make it think twice before blocking the flow of Nile water to downstream states.
Amani al-Taweel, an African affairs specialist at local think tank Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, said Egypt ratchets up pressure on Ethiopia by increasing its military presence in the Horn of Africa and intensifying its contacts with all capitals on the Ethiopian dam crisis and Ethiopia's Red Sea ambitions.
"Cairo has made its position on the two issues clear to Addis Ababa in the past two years," al-Taweel told TNA .
"So, now the Ethiopians know well which course of action Egypt will take if its interests are not taken into serious consideration," she added.
The three new dams, which will have a combined total capacity of 5,700 megawatts, are part of what Ethiopia describes as its energy master plan to harness the Blue Nile's potential.
Addis Ababa also frames the same projects as sovereign development for poverty reduction and clean energy.
The same projects will, however, complicate the situation for Egypt, further straining its water supply and consequently increasing tensions with the Arab country in the coming period, analysts said.
" Egypt has repeatedly clarified its opposition to the construction of dams on the Nile River without a binding legal agreement," Professor Sharaky said.
"The problem is, however, that Ethiopia treats the same river as a national resource, a perception that will fuel conflicts with other Nile basin states for a long time," he added.