Sudan’s Flooding: A Complex Interplay of Climate, Geography, and Politics
Sudan has once again faced devastating floods this year, with speculation about the causes quickly spreading. While Sudanese officials and engineers have not attributed the flooding to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), some Egyptian geologists and media outlets have claimed that the dam is responsible. They argue that four non-operational turbines at GERD created excess pressure, leading to increased water flow into Sudan. However, these claims are not supported by GERD water release data or consistent with reports from Sudanese experts on the ground. Instead, they follow a recurring pattern of blaming GERD for every crisis in the Nile Basin.
This approach risks undermining collaboration between neighboring Nile Basin countries and should be refuted. Let’s examine the actual facts on the ground.
Extreme Rainfall and Climate Change Are the Main Drivers of Flooding
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted intensified short-duration rainfall as the new normal in much of the Nile Basin. In Sudan, multiple reports have noted above-normal precipitation over the past three years. This year, September alone saw 200-400 percent more rainfall than average. Abu Bakr Mustafa, a Sudanese dam and infrastructure consultant, explained in an interview with Radio Dabanga that this year’s rainfall exceeded 150 mm per day in some areas, leading to torrents that swept through cities like Kassala, Port Sudan, Dongola, Wadi Halfa, Atbara, Shendi, Khartoum, and Omdurman.
The Atbara River recorded flows of 550 Million Meter Cube (MCM) in August—double its normal rate. According to Mustafa, it was these rains, exacerbated by climate change, that caused the widespread flooding across Sudan. The governor of El Gezira echoed this sentiment, stating that climate change contributed to the flooding and announcing support and compensation for affected farmers.
The Geography of the White Nile and Flood Contribution
Floods this year were widespread across Sudan, affecting communities along the Atbara, White Nile, and Blue Nile. It is illogical to attribute such extensive flooding to a single upstream reservoir. The Jebel Awliya Emergency Room warned that rising White Nile waters had overtopped barriers in several areas, including El Assal, Taiba El Hasnab, El Shaqilab, and El Kalaklat, submerging neighborhoods and leaving homes at risk of collapse.
The Irrigation Minister of Sudan noted that rising White Nile waters have swept through barriers and submerged neighborhoods in Jebel Awliya and beyond, threatening homes with collapse. The Atbara River also recorded flows nearly double its normal rate, further contributing to the flooding. Blaming GERD for floods along the White Nile or Atbara is unfounded and distracts from the real drivers: climate change and extreme rainfall. Additionally, the average releases from GERD during September were 472 MCM, well below the normal flood level of just over 600 MCM.
What Do History and Science Tell Us? GERD Reduced the Risk of Devastating Floods
Looking back at the 2020 floods in Sudan, which were considered a once-in-a-century event, peak flows in August 2020 reached more than 900 MCM. Modeling of reservoir operations and flood routing consistently shows that GERD, even at full capacity, reduces downstream flood risk by attenuating extreme flows during the rainy season. The entire purpose of having GERD storage, which is roughly 150 percent more than the annual Abbay (Blue Nile) flow, is to ensure consistent energy production throughout the year. This means, by design, the reservoir holds more water during the flood season. That is exactly what happened this year: more water from the heavy summer flow was held back.
Without GERD absorbing some of the flood waters, the combined Atbara and Blue Nile floods could have released flows in the order of a billion cubic meters per day. In other words, GERD shielded Sudan from a catastrophic incident, it did not exacerbate the situation.
The Real Issue: Undermining Ethio-Sudanese Cooperation
It is telling that Sudanese experts are not blaming GERD, while some Egyptian commentators continue to do so based on unscientific opinions. This reflects politics more than science. Sudanese officials noted that high discharges from the dam coincided with seasonal floods—an observation that points to the urgent need for coordination between Ethiopia and Sudan. Sudanese officials clarified that reaching “flood level” at monitoring stations does not necessarily mean widespread flooding, but only that the river has reached its banks.
Sudanese professionals emphasized the real drivers of Sudan’s flood impacts this year were outdated dam management practices, weak urban planning, and the lack of protection along the Nile banks. Uncontrolled population encroachment into flood channels left communities dangerously exposed. Sudan also relies on protocols that assume rainfall peaks in mid-September (a rule curve that has been in place since pre-GERD and needs to be updated) even though heavy rains now extend through the end of the month.
Beyond the Rhetoric: Towards Collaboration
Unfortunately, the Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Hani Sewilam, politicized and blamed GERD for every flooding in Sudan despite documented evidence of its flood attenuation. He declared: “This dam is illegitimate and will remain so. Present and future generations must not take it as normal or accept it as a fact of life, except within the framework of a binding legal agreement for all parties.” Such rhetoric illustrates the real issue: GERD is not being judged on its tangible merits, but on Egypt’s distorted political entitlement and insistence that the dam should never have been built.
This refusal to accept new facts on the ground and insistence on clinging to bygone eras of unjust paradigms is clear not just in Egypt’s behavior in this instance but in their resistance to the legalization of the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), which would assure equitable and reasonable water use in the Nile basin countries.
Conclusion
GERD is repeatedly cast as a scapegoat for every Nile crisis, even when evidence points to rainfall extremes and local vulnerabilities as the true causes of flooding in Sudan. Sudan’s tragedy this year and in the past is a reminder of the compounding pressures of climate change and the need for building resiliency through coordinated adaptation in many countries within the Nile Basin.
The GERD, far from being the problem, is part of the solution if managed cooperatively. It can reduce floods, enhance energy security, and regulate flows in ways that benefit all Nile Basin countries. But understanding the advantages of the GERD requires accepting the new facts on the ground: the Nile today is not the Nile of yesterday. Fanning flames with speculative blame serves media agendas but does not help the millions living along the river.
If the Nile basin states move away from finger-pointing and toward consensus, it is then possible to ask the question: how can the Nile basin countries maximize the utilization of Nile Basin resources and work towards achieving a shared vision rooted in sustainability and equity?
This should come through sustained collaborative work across the basin on win-win solutions through the Nile River Basin Commission that is already approved by the majority of the basin countries.
