Presentation by Dr Michael Kizza, Deputy Executive Director, Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), at the Symposium Models and decision-making in the wake of climate uncertainties, during the Deltares Software Days - Kampala 2023 (DSD-Kampala 2023). Wednesday, 4 October 2023, Kampala, Uganda.

1. Analytic Tools for Cooperative Water
Resources Assessments in Nile Basin
Deltares Software Days
Kampala
Dr Michael Kizza
Deputy Executive Director
Nile Basin Initiative

2. - About Nile Basin – challenges and opportunities
- Nile Basin Initiative mandate, program, achievements,
challenges
- Modelling tools for transboundary water cooperation
- Benefits of cooperation
Presentation summary

3. - Source of livelihood for > 250m people
in 11 countries (500m in countries)
- Area - 3.2 m sq km
- Most part of the basin is arid/semi-
desert
- Over 80% flow comes from a small
basin part that is prone to regular
climate extremes
- Most current uses are in the d/s
arid/semi-desert part
- Most undeveloped part is upstream in
water source countries
- Home to fragile ecosystems and
world-class environmental assets
The Nile Basin

4. Basin Challenges and Opportunities
Challenges
• Compared to the population and
demands, the Nile Basin is a water-
scarce region.
• The Basin also hosts some of the
poorest nations in the world.
• Inadequate availability, unsustainable
use and poor management of water
resources
• Populations and economies are is
growing fast, urbanisation is increasing
• Growing demands and pressures result
in declining per capita water availability.
• Increasing environmental degradation,
habitat destruction and unsustainable
use of water-related ecosystems;
• This is further complicated by the
potential impacts of climate change
Opportunities
• A huge and still untapped potential for
hydropower generation and power
trade, food production, navigation and
intra-basin trade in agriculture.
• Young, dynamic and fast growing
populations offer opportunities for
labour, and commodity markets
• Vast, and still pristine, environmental
resources that can offer ecosystem
services
• And entrenched culture of cooperation
to address challenges through the Nile
Bain Initiative but also other regional
agencies.
• Opportunities for regional integration
thru navigation, tourism development,
agricultural trade, power integration

5. Shared Vision Objective: ‘To achieve sustainable socio-
economic development through the equitable
utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin
water resources’
5
The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI)
Core functions:
• Facilitating basin cooperation
• Water resources management
• Water resources development
Website: https://www.nilebasin.org/
Offices:
• Nile-SEC: Entebbe, Uganda
• ENTRO: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
• NELSAP-CU: Kigali, Rwanda

6. Knowledge and information
• Key to improve water resource management to
promote cooperation
Limited
technical
capacity
Insufficient
basin-wide data
and information
Lack of trust/
data sharing

7. Knowledge and information base
Studies and research
Project identification, prioritization
and preparation
Improved basin monitoring
Leveraging remote sensing
Information sharing
No
Stations
Country
2
Burundi
-
DRC
-
Ethiopia
6
Kenya
6
Rwanda
5
South Sudan
2 (12)
Sudan
13
Uganda
8
Tanzania

8. Analytic tools
• Support informed, impartial, and fair decision
making about policy and practice
– Nile Basin Decision Support System (DSS),
– Cooperative Regional Assessments (CRAs)
– Multi-Sectoral Investment Opportunity Analysis (MSIOA)

9. Nile Basin DSS
• Platform around which stakeholders can discuss and
agree on solutions enabling a future sustainable water
management for the Nile countries
• Key tool for addressing future challenges facing the
Nile

10. NB DSS
Tools for
• Time series
analysis
• Scenario
management and
• Multi criteria
assessment

11. NB Strategic Water Resources Analysis …
Key question: how to meet growing demand for water, food and
energy upstream and downstream sustainably? How can NBI
support inter-riparian dialogue to achieve this?
Objective: inform riparian dialogue on selected (current and
emerging) challenges of transboundary water resources management
at basin and sub-basin levels through scenario and tradeoff analyses.
The SWRA wasintended to support ongoing dialogue between countries
by highlighting key issues through use of NBI analytic tools.
The results are a key input into the process of river basin management
and for making key transboundary investment decisions

12. 12
Strategic water resources analysis
Main phases
Phase I
Basin under current (mainly
unilateral) development
• Establish baseline water demand/use
• Projection of water demand based
on country plans (unilateral dev)
• Quantify basin water balance; future
likely water shortage
• Identify options for addressing
growing water demand sustainably
• Projection of water availability under
climate change
• Projection of water demand and
water shortage under CC
Phase 2
Strategic options for cooperative
management & development
• Refine/expand water demand
projections (M/I, e-flow..)
• Generate macro-economic
scenarios + Hydro-economic
optimization
• Develop dam cascade operation
rules
• Refine water supply projection
(CC) Projection of water deficit
under various options from Phase I
• Explore options from phase I
• Generate strategic options
Results presented to Nile-COM
(July 2016)
Completed May 2023, country
validation underway
River
Basin
Management
Planning
and
Basin
Investment
Programme

13. Context – SWRA Building Blocks

14. What is SWRA?
 Develop projections of water demands in
the Nile Basin
 Estimate projected future water
availability
 Quantify likely water deficits
 Explore strategic options for balancing
water supply and demand

15. Challenges – Basin wide complexity
 Data acquisition and data format harmonization
 Keep the data updated over the entire lifecycle of the project
 Coordination with various stakeholders
 Coordination of contributing building blocks
 Set up an appropriate modelling environment and keep it
updated
 How to present results so that they are easy to understand
 Meet the expectations of the countries

16. Converting diverse datasets to model parameters
Hydro-
economics
Hydro-
economics
M & I
demand
M & I
demand
Irrigation
Irrigation Navigation
Navigation
Desa-
lination
Desa-
lination
Water
reuse
Water
reuse
Wetlands
Wetlands
E-Flows
E-Flows
Coordinated
operation
Coordinated
operation
 Translation into relevant parameters for a hydrological model
 Time challenge as some results/reports came in late
Input from the
building blocks
Input from the
building blocks

17. The Data Challenges
Reservoirs
dam lake wetland
Water
users Municipal /
commercial
Irrigation
River
with navigation
translation

18. The Data Challenge
 Soil information
 Crops
 Crop coefficients
 Cropping patterns
 Efficiencies
Ensure a harmonized calculation of crop water requirements
Irrigation is the largest water consumer!

19. The Data Challenge
Reservoirs
dam lake wetland
Water
user Municipal /
commercial
Irrigation
River
with navigation
translation

20. The Data Challenge
 Operation rules were partly available
 Simplification necessary
 Assumptions on filling and emptying phases
• GERD was assumed to be in operation (no filling phase)
• GERD long-term operation rules were not known
Assumptions are necessary
Reproducing reality is difficult/ impossible

21. Progress and updates
2015 2023
 Major problem: Updates of data
Data collection finished
Model toolbox developed
Simulations conducted
Updates of
irrigation plans
received!
Implication: Time problem
Limited exchange about model and modelling with countries

22. Result dimension problem
 > 200 sub-basins, > 300 water users, > 80 dams
 Every node has time series results
How to display results so that they are
• easy to understand
• Comprehensive
Country vs sub-basin vs basin presentation!!!

23. Experiences
Challenges:
 Coordination of all activities
 Harmonization of parameters
 Data update challenge due to the long project lifetime
 Availability of water infrastructure operation data
Lesson learned:
 Rigorous plan how to update data during the project
 Capacity building is key - Country modellers

24. Key results
 High confidence that water deficit will occur
 A combination of measures is required to counter the supply gap
 Improvement of water use efficiency should be promoted
 Water reuse has a high potential with 16.5 BCM/a
 Water deficit irrigation has a potential with 11 BCM/a
 Crop shift could bring up to 5.8 BCM/a but entails strong transboundary
collaboration
 Desalination is almost entirely limited to Egypt
 Coordinated reservoir operation is important for dam safety, flood and
drought management
 Measures for demand management are urgently required

25. Benefits of Nile Cooperation
• A Common Platform for Institutionalised Cooperation
• Cooperative Water Resource Planning and Management:
Generating and Sharing Knowledge
• Water Resources Development: Investing in Water, Food and
Energy Security

26. NBI achievements of cooperation – in numbers

27. NBI achievements of cooperation – in numbers

28. NBI achievements of cooperation – in numbers

29. Conclusions - benefits of investing in improved
analytical tools
 Expanded shared data, information and knowledge base (e.g. through the IKP);
 Realtime data collection and use (e.g. regional hydromet system, EUMETSAT)
 Analytical and decision-making tools for policy makers and water resources planners (e.g. the
Nile Basin DSS, River Flow Forecasting System),
 Tools for dam cascade operation, strategic water assessment, joint flood monitoring,
management of ecosystems
 Collaborative water resources assessments – provide evidence-based information for decision
making
 Training and capacity building for hundreds of water resources planners drawn from all
Member States
Technical Session Installing EUMESAT

30. THANK YOU!