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BEYOND TRADITIONAL BOUNDARIES: REGIONAL AND GLOBAL DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Date

2023-10-16

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

ORCID

0000-0001-9953-3680

Type

Thesis

Degree Level

Doctoral

Abstract

This thesis introduces a framework that aims to support decision-making for enhanced water and food security, while adopting the understanding that water and food sectors are becoming increasingly unrestricted to specific borders or boundaries due to the globalization of resources and the interdependencies among the water, food, and other sectors. This framework is used, with some modifications, in three different applications that are presented in three respective peer-reviewed articles. The first article introduces a novel framework, called the national water, food, and trade (NWFT) modelling framework, that consists of two components: a national model that simulates the supply and demand of water and food on a national level, and a data-driven international virtual water (food) trade model that captures national virtual water exports and imports associated with trade in agricultural and animal products. Egypt is used as a case study for the application of the NWFT framework, with the national water and food gaps evaluated for a baseline period (1986–2013) and projected up to 2050 based on four national development scenarios. Results indicate the alarming situation of Egypt’s projected food gap by the year 2050, by which time food imports are projected to have to increase on average by 200% compared to 2021 values. The NWFT framework was able to successfully simulate the effect of water use and various socioeconomic variables, including population growth rate, on Egypt's historical food and water gaps. The framework could be easily adopted for other countries and regions. In the second article, the NWFT framework is modified to be an optimization-simulation framework and is presented as a multi-objective approach that aids policymakers in water-food security assessment and management while taking into account the major non-agricultural water uses associated with national development scenarios, the globalization of resources through the food trade, and the performance of the proposed solutions under possible national and global changes. The framework is formulated to minimize the agricultural water demand, food imports, and economic cost of imports as well as maximize the national gross margin of agriculture. Egypt is considered as the case study, with a set of alternative cropping patterns generated and evaluated for the baseline period (1986-2013) as well as under future conditions up to the year 2050. The results show the framework is useful for proposing cropping patterns that could have worked better for Egypt during the baseline period, but also cropping patterns that outperform the historical cropping pattern in each objective function for a wide range of future conditions. In the third article, the water-food assessment framework is expanded in its sectoral representation to include hydropower generation as the most relevant component of the energy sector. The framework is configured for a regional case study of the Eastern Nile Basin (ENB) countries of Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, and Ethiopia, and set to simulate the ENB’s water resources, food production, and hydropower generation as a water-energy-food (WEF) nexus. The framework is calibrated and validated for the period from 1983 to 2016, then utilized to project a wide range of future development plans up to the year 2050. Four measures are used to evaluate the performance of the WEF nexus under each of these plans. A thematic pathway of development in the region that shows high potential for mutual benefits is identified and analyzed under several combinations of future social and climatic changes. Results show the ENB countries can reach significantly better food security conditions before 2050 and can generate an additional 42000 GWh/year of hydropower without significantly diminishing the downstream (Egypt) water scarcity problem. WEF performance measures of the ENB countries are significantly sensitive to climate change; however, under low population growth rates the climate change impacts on WEF security are less severe.

Description

Keywords

Water, food, energy, hydrology, water resources management, Egypt, Eastern Nile Basin, Climate Change, Trade, Virtual water, Agriculture, cropping pattern, GERD, Ethiopia

Citation

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Civil and Geological Engineering

Program

Civil Engineering

Advisor

Part Of

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DOI

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