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Making Water Security: A Morphological Account of Nile River Development
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This book examines Nile water security through the morphology of the river: it uses the always changing form of the river as a theoretical and empirical device to map and understand how infrastructures and discourses dynamically interact with the Nile. By bringing a history of two centuries of dam development on the Nile in relation with the drainage of a hill slope in Ethiopia on the one hand and irrigation reform in Sudan on the other, the author shows how the scales, units and ‘populations’ figuring in projects to securitize the river emerge through the rearrangement of its water and sediments. The analysis of ‘Making water security’ is more than yet another story of how modern projects of water security have legitimized often violent dispossessions of Nile land and water. It shows how no water user is confined by the roles assigned by project engineers and planners. As ongoing modern ‘development’ of the river reduces the prospects for new large diversions of water, the targeted subjects of development and modernization make use of newly opened spaces to carve out their own projects. They creatively mobilize old irrigation and drainage infrastructures in ways that escape the universal logic of water security.
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... Back to the 12 th century, research has revealed that religious conflict has promoted Ethiopian Christian kings to warn Muslim Egyptian sultans of their power to divert Nile River waters [29]. Besides, it has been reported that, in 1979, a former Egyptian president had issued a war threat to supposed violators of Egyptian rights over Nile waters [30,31]. Most recently, in 2012, a plan to construct an airstrip for bombing a dam in the Blue Nile River Gorge in Egypt was widely reported by newspapers across the world [29]. ...
... Different arrangements have isolated most NBC from their basic water resources. Though different studies account for socio-political scenarions and arrangement over Nile waters, most recent study [31] presents a succinct history of significant arrangements and clashes in the region. The British government, in a representative capacity of her colonies within the NRB, in 1929, concluded an agreement between Egypt and Sudan to strengthen an effective utilisation of Nile wasters, with each riparian country allocated 48 billion and 4 billion cubic metres, respectively. ...
Transboundary waters are very often a trigger of resource conflict. Typical water resource conflict arises when riparian states begin to assert varying rights or conflicting interests over such waters. The Nile River, as transboundary water, has more recently become a key subject of local, regional, and global concern, especially in studying its potentially conflict-related consequences. The concern is primarily due to diverse claims over Nile water resources and growing factors peculiar to some of the riparian states. This study argues that the Nile River has potential for conflict of far-reaching international consequences and that such a conflict may be triggered by concerns tied to assertive traditional right of ownership, sustainable equitable management of Nile waters, and growing population among the riparian states. By using ecological risk indicators, and global and local datasets, it analyses the impacts of such potential conflict on security, water quality, water quantity, the environment, and economics. The study overall highlights how a cooperative legal framework, as well as international law such as the United Nations Watercourses Convention, can be utilised to effectively manage Nile water resources. This study has crucial legal and policy implications for managing transboundary water resources and preventing potential conflicts of wider impacts.KeywordsEnvironmentEnvironmental risksImpactNile RiverPopulation growthRiverine ecologyUpper Nile countriesWater quality and quantity
... Back to the 12 th century, research has revealed that religious conflict has promoted Ethiopian Christian kings to warn Muslim Egyptian sultans of their power to divert Nile River waters [29]. Besides, it has been reported that, in 1979, a former Egyptian president had issued a war threat to supposed violators of Egyptian rights over Nile waters [30,31]. Most recently, in 2012, a plan to construct an airstrip for bombing a dam in the Blue Nile River Gorge in Egypt was widely reported by newspapers across the world [29]. ...
... Different arrangements have isolated most NBC from their basic water resources. Though different studies account for socio-political scenarions and arrangement over Nile waters, most recent study [31] presents a succinct history of significant arrangements and clashes in the region. The British government, in a representative capacity of her colonies within the NRB, in 1929, concluded an agreement between Egypt and Sudan to strengthen an effective utilisation of Nile wasters, with each riparian country allocated 48 billion and 4 billion cubic metres, respectively. ...
Transboundary waters are very often a trigger of resource conflict. Typical water resource conflict arises when riparian states begin to assert varying rights or conflicting interests over such waters. The Nile River, as transboundary water, has more recently become a key subject of local, regional, and global concern, especially in studying its potentially conflict-related consequences. The concern is primarily due to diverse claims over Nile water resources and growing factors peculiar to some of the riparian states. This study argues that the Nile River has potential for conflict of far-reaching international consequences and that such a conflict may be triggered by concerns tied to assertive traditional right of ownership, sustainable equitable management of Nile waters, and growing population among the riparian states. By using ecological risk indicators, and global and local datasets, it analyses the impacts of such potential conflict on security, water quality, water quantity, the environment, and economics. The study overall highlights how a cooperative legal framework, as well as international law such as the United Nations Watercourses Convention, can be utilised to effectively manage Nile water resources. This study has crucial legal and policy implications for managing transboundary water resources and preventing potential conflicts of wider impacts.
