Engineering systems and environment Ph.D. student Prakrut Kansara and his advisor, Professor Venkat Lakshmi, have published a paper in the journal Remote Sensing assessing the impact of the new Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Ethiopia finished construction on the dam, built on the Blue Nile, in July 2020. The Blue Nile flows into the Nile River in Sudan, providing much of the Nile's water volume, before entering Egypt.
The dam's reservoir is filling rapidly, raising fears and geopolitical tensions over water shortages downstream in Egypt and Sudan, which rely on the Nile River for nearly all of their fresh water and agricultural irrigation systems. Kansara's research team is using remote sensing data to monitor the reservoir. The paper discusses their observations and the potential flood and drought implications for Egypt and Sudan.