A satellite image of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), depicting the water levels in the reservoir following the third filling in 2022, was posted on Facebook on Tuesday by Abbas Sharaky, Professor of Geology and Water Resources at Cairo University.
The water in the reservoir has just risen to the saddle dams base but not the original dams body, according to the photo taken today, August 16. That suggests that the dam won’t be under any stress this year.
The water would continue to flow in the valley that the original dam currently blocks even if it were not extant. As a result, the Renaissance Dam’s initial U.S. design set a 14 billion cubic metre reservoir capacity restriction. It was mentioned by Sharaky in the post.
The artwork depicts water flowing over the main wall, the speaker said.
Due to the middle corridors’ incapacity to drain the daily inflow, which can surpass 700 million cubic metres per day, the reservoir’s water level will rise a little in the following days. By the end of September, when the rain stops, the level will return to normal.
Sharaky claimed that the third filling occurred between July 11 and August 11, and that only nine billion cubic metres of water were really stored, bringing the reservoir’s total volume to 17 billion cubic metres.
The first GERD filling, totaling 4. 9 billion cubic metres, began on July 1st, 2020. The second, totaling about three billion cubic metres, began on July 4th, 2021.
Two gates had been opened since April, according to a report from Sharaqi in July, releasing two billion cubic metres of water.
The professor also stated that building work on the dam will last 5-6 years because the middle wall needs to be raised in order for the reservoirs capacity to reach 74 billion cubic metres as anticipated.
Since Ethiopia started working on the project in May 2011, Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia have been at war with one another over the project’s water allocation (55. 5 billion cubic metres).
The $4. 8 billion Grand Renaissance Dams project got under way on April 2, 2011. It was constructed by the Italian engineering and construction company Salini Impergilo. The dam, which is situated on the Blue Nile, has a 6,000 megawatt capacity and a 74 billion cubic metre reservoir.
However, due to the reduction in the number of turbines to be built from 16 to 13, it is anticipated to only produce 3,000 megawatts. Although the first turbine was installed earlier this year, no additional installations have occurred as of yet.
Ethiopia announced on January 13 that it will start clearing 17,000 hectares of forest in February, a process that will take 60 days, to finish the third filling of the dam.
An Egyptian geologist reveals the results of the third filling of the Ethiopian Dam using satellite images.
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