Optimal land and water allocation to agriculture and hydropower in the Upper Blue Nile basin

The Nile basin is an ecosystem under stress due to rapid population growth, urgent needs for more efficient utilization of natural resources, potential impacts of climate change, and persistent conflicts between riparian countries on the limited set of resources. This thesis develops a framework for optimal allocation of land and water resources to agriculture and hydropower production in the upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin, which contributes about 60 percent of the Nile river flow. The framework consists of three optimization models that aim to: (a) provide accurate estimates of the basin water budget components, (b) allocate land and water resources optimally to rain-fed, and irrigated agriculture, and (c) allocate water to agriculture and hydropower production, and investigate trade-offs between them. This thesis makes two methodological contributions.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Allam, Mariam M.(Mariam Mohammed Nasr El Din Ibrahim)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Elfatih A. B. Eltahir.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/113470

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/113470