The landscape of water infrastructure in the Nile Basin is changing with the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Although this dam could improve electricity supply in Ethiopia and its neighbors, there is a lack of consensus between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt on the dam operation. We introduce a new modeling framework that simulates the Nile River System and Egypt’s macroeconomy, with dynamic feedbacks between the river system and the macroeconomy. Because the two systems “coevolve” throughout multi-year simulations, we term this a “coevolutionary” modeling framework. The framework is used to demonstrate that a coordinated operating strategy could allow the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam to help meet water demands in Egypt during periods of water scarcity and increase hydropower generation and storage in Ethiopia during high flows. Here we show the hydrological and macroeconomic performance of this coordinated strategy compared to a strategy that resembles a recent draft proposal for the operation of the dam discussed in Washington DC.

随着埃塞俄比亚复兴大坝的建设，尼罗河流域的水利基础设施格局正在发生变化。尽管这座大坝可以改善埃塞俄比亚及其邻国的电力供应，但埃塞俄比亚、苏丹和埃及之间对大坝的运营缺乏共识。我们引入了一个新的建模框架，可以模拟尼罗河水系和埃及的宏观经济，并在河流水系和宏观经济之间进行动态反馈。由于这两个系统在多年的模拟中“共同进化”，我们将其称为“共同进化”建模框架。该框架用于证明协调的运营策略可以使埃塞俄比亚复兴大坝帮助满足缺水时期埃及的用水需求，并在高流量期间增加埃塞俄比亚的水力发电和储存。在这里，我们展示了这一协调战略的水文和宏观经济绩效，与类似于最近在华盛顿特区讨论的大坝运营提案草案的战略进行比较。