Abstract for: Human Futures: Investigating Resilient Policy in Egypt’s Agricultural Sector

This paper documents the development of an initial model targeted at identifying policy options for fostering agricultural resiliency in Egypt given significant water shortfalls expected during and after the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and the filling of its reservoir. Studies have shown that depending on GERD filling scenarios, there is expected to be a multi-year 5 to 25 percent loss in flow on the Nile River within Egypt.[1, 2] This significant disruption in water availability will likely present some operational problems for Egypt because it is already stressed for water resources and agricultural products.[2-5] This paper describes and demonstrates how an integrated resilience metric can help assess the cost and benefits of policy options with respect to the water situation that Egypt faces given the GERD. The model described in this section, tailored specifically for the Egyptian water scenario, applies resilience methodology and equations developed at Sandia National Laboratories and published in the book Critical Infrastructure System Security and Resiliency. [6]