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  • Publication | 2024

Evaluating hydropower and irrigation development in Sudan under climate change uncertainties

Global Food and Nutrition Security

Sudan, which encompasses around 40% of the Nile Basin area (Figure 1), faces challenges in meeting water, energy, and food needs. To help address these challenges, the country has plans to construct four large dams on the Nile with a combined capacity of 1,500 MW and expand irrigated agriculture on the Blue Nile by one million hectares (Basheer et al. 2024; ENTRO 2014). These plans aim to increase electricity access and reduce reliance on food imports, which constitute 22% of its import bill (Central Bank of Sudan 2021). Climate change poses uncertainties for the development of infrastructure on the Nile. Projections indicate that climate change will alter the Nile streamflow with a wide range of uncertainties in impacts (Basheer et al. 2023; Beyene et al. 2010; Tariku et al. 2021), necessitating stress-testing development plans to ensure that investments are robust to alterations in streamflow and irrigation needs. To assess climate change impacts on planned infrastructure, we developed an integrated analytical framework (Figure 2), combining climate change projections and hydrological, river system, and economywide models of the Nile. This framework was used to evaluate the potential biophysical and economywide impacts of phased hydropower and irrigation development pathways for Sudan until 2050 under diverse climate change scenarios.