Theoretical and Empirical Review of Ethiopian Water Resource Potentials, Challenges and Future Development Opportunities

摘要

Ethiopia is endowed with plentiful amounts of water resources potential. However, the backbone of Ethiopian economy, Agriculture, is highly rainfall dependent and the energy source relays on fuel wood. Even though the country has enough amounts of water resources potential, clear current figure of water resources potential especially in ground water part, utilization constraints and future water resources utilization opportunities is not clearly known. Reviews of different secondary data from various sources were conducted to fill these gaps. Based on the findings, The country has sufficient amount of surface water resources potential which is around 124 billion cubic meter and 30 million cubic meter (some but insufficient evidences shows it reaches 40 cubic meter) of ground water. The hydro power generation potential of major Rivers and Rift valley lakes is estimated to reach about 160,000 Megawatt/year. Irregular place to place and time to time sharing of major rivers and rain fall, cross boundary nature, topographic features of the country, technical and financial challenges are among main utilization constraints. The region has eye opening bright outlooks to go further in water resources development and utilization. Different factors hinder the utilization of the country water resources but these plenty amounts of water resource shows bright future opportunities to use it.