We urgently need hydro-diplomacy

The furniture of the Evros River successful the region’s south has dried up successful galore parts. [Alexandros Avramidis]

The quality comes from Africa but it besides concerns us present successful Greece. Ethiopia, a state that has repeatedly been deed by drought and where radical are dying by the thousands from thirst and hunger, has completed the operation of the largest hydroelectric dam connected the continent, done which it plans to clasp ample quantities of water from the Nile (through a tributary), to irrigate its onshore and nutrient vigor susceptible of supplying neighboring countries.

Egypt, which the Nile traverses earlier flowing into the Mediterranean, is furious, considering Ethiopia’s pharaonic task destructive and an “existential threat.” Egypt cannot beryllium without the waters of the Nile, nor would the large past Egyptian civilization person developed successful the aridity of the desert, if its imported materials had not functioned arsenic a source of beingness connected its banks.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi reiterated that Egypt is going to take each imaginable measures to support what is simply a substance of nationalist information for his country, while Sudan feels it will besides beryllium affected by the impending alteration of water flow. Currently, nary water volumes person begun collecting successful the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), but Sisi’s threats person already sounded the alarm of a imaginable struggle implicit water successful Africa, and it remains to beryllium seen however the countries progressive will settee the contented to debar a catastrophic clash.

“And what bash we attraction if they’re warring implicit water successful Africa?” 1 mightiness ask, suggesting different problems of our ain to solve.

If we look toward our bluish borders, we will spot that 4 large rivers – the Ardas, Evros, Strymonas, and Axios – each of which person their sources successful different countries, supply water to the plains of Macedonia and Thrace. If for immoderate crushed the water that flows done our borders decreases, whether owed to clime alteration oregon due to the fact that our neighbors divert ample quantities to their ain crops, cultivation accumulation and the uncommon wetlands successful the plains of bluish Greece will die, on with the region’s economy.

Of course, we are not saying that we should hole for a war with our neighbors implicit water, though nary 1 knows what the aboriginal whitethorn hold. However, arsenic was evident earlier this year with the lawsuit of the Ardas, when Greece and Bulgaria signed a caller statement to supply regular quantities to the former, the omens are not good.

Bilateral agreements, where they exist, will astatine some constituent expire, and we will person to negociate with our “partners” under unfavorable conditions, due to the fact that the water successful the rivers has present decreased dramatically. The handling of these issues, therefore, needs to beryllium upgraded astatine the diplomatic level.

Countries with problems of co-management of water resources person established a special assemblage of hydro-diplomacy, and it seems that we urgently request it too.