Revitalizing ETGUI

The Ethiopian Geophysical Union International (ETGUI) successfully conducted a Webinar on the 18th of September, 2021. The webinar brought a diverse group of participants across the globe. There were researchers from academia, government, and industry sectors. While the expertise of the participants mainly focuses on water and soil sciences, there were atmospheric, remote sensing, and geology professionals. Graduate students also attended the Webinar. This profile of participants shows not only the diversity of ETGUI members but also the skill sets and resources available to ETGUI for future undertakings (Figure 1). 

In his revitalizing talk, Dr. Semu Moges, the President of ETGUI, stressed that the major challenge of Ethiopia is the lack of critical mass of knowledge where professional organizations such as the ETGUI can play a key role. Dr. Moges outlined the vision, mission, the revitalized organizational structure, and invited members to fully participate in sub-scientific committees and activities. Dr. Semu appealed to all Webinar participants to register as members and strengthen ETGUI, participate in creating strong scientific networks with other organizations, academic institutions and funding agencies. Dr. Moges reiterates, strengthening ETGUI supports our bid for the advancement of education, research, knowledge implementation, and capacity building in Ethiopia and the horn of Africa.

Our diverse participants also raised a number of questions and suggestions that will enrich ETGUI and shape its next chapter. Along with bringing professionals from different sectors, the importance of facilitating communication among the industry, academia, and government organizations was discussed. Furthermore, in revitalizing ETGUI, a number of insightful comments and suggestions were raised. A few of the specific comments include: 

  • Internally Strengthening the ETGUI to make it a more impactful organization.

  • Being a liaison to facilitate the link between the diaspora and Earth science departments in Ethiopia to increase the contribution of the diaspora in strengthening homegrown PhD programs.

  • Working in collaboration with the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences (EAS) and its associate members in the diaspora who are independent, evidence-based scientific advisors to the nation in policymaking.

  • Collaboration with organizations focused on earth sciences such as Geological Survey of Ethiopia, Ministry of Mines, and Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy, Space society, Ethiopian meteorological Societies, etc.

  • Working in collaboration with other professional scientific societies in Ethiopia.

  • Supporting and strengthening earth science departments across Ethiopia that have several challenges (by providing equipment and expertise)

The Hidden Water of the Nile - A scientific Presentation

The scientific presentation on “the Hidden waters of the Nile” highlighted the unaccounted water sources that benefit the future sustainable development and management of the basin equitably and reasonably. Dr. Gabriel Senay and Dr. Semu Moges presented that there is more water in the Nile basin than the usually cited  84 billion cubic meters (BCM). Dr. Senay showed that the Nile produces at least  97 BCM of flow volume annually. He iterated the presence of an unaccounted annual water volume of nearly 13 BCM that has never been reported in the literature. This water can irrigate more than 1.3 million hectares of land, which can support more than 20 million people per year. This work was published in Water Resources Research (WRR) in 2014.


Dr. Semu Moges showed significant water is being lost on the large-scale irrigation schemes in the Nile (mainly in Sudan and Egypt). He recommended a series of water-saving and management approaches to gain access to the unaccounted water. Improving water use efficiency, improving cropping patterns, implementation of deficit irrigation, joint upstream-downstream water resources management and enhancing rainfed agriculture efficiency are some of the water-saving options mentioned. Dr. Moges cited a study by El-Nashar and Elyamany (2018) that showed nearly 40 BCM of water can be saved by improving agricultural practices in Egypt. Dr. Moges concluded there is no water scarcity in the basin, there is only scarcity of political willingness.

Figure 2: Nile flow contributing areas as sources and sinks. Map showing sub-basins/river segments of the Nile as net water source/gaining or net water sink/losing areas. Blue polygons/river segments are net sources and brown/red are net sinks. Numbers (+/-) along river segments show losses or gains in BMC between two consecutive flow measuring stations (12 total) shown on the WRR paper.

Al Em