2. Water Stress Indices - a National or Transnational issue?

In the preceding introductory post I presented the ensuing theme of the link between politics, conflict and water scarcity, yet before discussing the possible correlation and causations among the triad, it is important to first define what we mean by water scarcity. In their discussion of the relevance of Falkenmark’s WSI (Water Stress Index) as an adequate stress measurement, Damkjaer and Taylor (2017) define water scarcity as “shortage in the availability of renewable freshwater relative to demand.” The WSI is one of the most universally utilised indicators of water stress yet was developed on the model of Israel, a small developing country with a high population density and large agricultural and industrial output - hardly a universally applicable model one could argue. Furthermore, both the WSI and its successor, the MARR, make assumptions that agricultural and industrial uses of water will amount to 20 times that of domestic use, does not take into account temporal variability, and amounts for groundwater resources only so far as they contribute to river runoff. (ibid, 2017). 

In order to question the employability of such a static water stress index I will look at the case study of Egypt, where various non-governmental reports cite official water shortage levels as the most deterministic factor of a country’s water situation without taking into account or encouraging governmental change in efficiency of water resource management. The lack of consideration of transnational cooperation (or paucity of cooperation) in existing water stress indicators is a further factor likely to lead to conflict and/or political instability. In the case of Egypt, fears of further water stress reside on account of the near completion of the Grand Ethiopian Resistance Dam (GERD) at the head of the Nile. 

The ensuing page will focus on Egypt as it is considered one of the most water scarce countries within both North Africa and the African continent, both in terms of withdrawal-to-availability ratio and quantity of groundwater reservoirs (ibid, 2017). It is also a county renowned for its recent political instability in the 2011 revolution, culminating in the overthrow of President Mubarak’s government and the brief establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood in power. The revolution initiated as a combination of many factors, yet some of the most cardinal can be seen as the governments inefficiency in water management. In regards to agricultural output; Egypt is one of the world’s highest producer’s of rice, a crop requiring constant irrigation - a seemingly strange combination if one considers Egypt’s position as a country deemed nearing Day 0 of water availability (Renault, 2014). Prior to 2011 in aims to cut back at the country’s water usage Mubarak’s government attempted to limit rice cultivation to specified areas, though this led to outrage by agricultural workers and ensuing tensions between the rural peasant community and governments were one of the foremost catalysts of the Arab Spring; the distrust between people and state heightened, and in part because of the widening gap between the entities, further police brutality ensued as the state distanced itself became estranged from the people (Dakkak, 2018). Thus it can be seen that although Egypt is naturally a country with low levels of freshwater availability, the combination of natural geography alongside government inefficiency has the potential to lead to conflict and political instability. 

The majority of Egypt’s water supply has for millennia depended upon the Nile River, the Blue Delta currently supplies 59% of Egypts water (Conniff, 2017), and the sustainability of such a resource depends “upon whether the resources consumed though such development [of water resources] are renewed.” (Taylor, 2004). As with the aforementioned water stress indices, such estimations are undertaken on a national basis though this is in opposition to the nature of water resources. Estimations of Egypt’s water supply are yet to take into account the likely receding volume of the Egyptian Nile Basin due to the construction of the GERD in Ethiopia, whereby after the GERD the Nile has yet to pass through Sudan’s four dams and capital city Khartoum before reaching the Aswan dam in the Upper Delta (Cooke, 2018). 

Map displaying course of the River Nile (Cooke, 2018)

It is projected that if current consumption rates in Egypt continue the country will run out of water by 2025 (Stanley & Clemente, 2017), though this does not take into account the completion of the GERD which will have the capacity to store 74 billion cubic metres of water, taking anything from 5 to 20 years to fill - depending on rainfall and diplomacy of the Ethiopian government (Conniff, 2017). An extension of the filling period would extend a lifeline to Egypt in order to improve existing sustainability of water infrastructure. Although outright state-sponsored conflict seems unlikely to appear, with Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia signing a “declaration of principles” whereby all parties promise to avoid purposeful damage to one another (Meky, 2017),  the construction of the dam marks a significant shift in power from Cairo to Addis Ababa. As can be seen from the Arab Spring during 2011 in Egypt, though governmentally-organised violence needn’t be likely, significant negative changes to resource availability is likely to spark tension in the already unstable region. 

In this blog I have aimed to demonstrate the inextricable consociation between governmental management of water resources and transnational diplomacy. In the explication of the above, I hope to add further insight into academia questioning the usage of the nationally-bounded indices of the WSI and MARR. In the case study of Egypt, though these indices may be helpful in broad predictions used to spurr on governmentally sponsored development programs, deficiency in the consideration of transnational water availability could lead to Day 0 occurring far sooner than projected for the country.