Water expert and dam engineering consultant, Abu Bakr Muhammad Mustafa, confirmed that Sudan faced challenges in the past and current years due to Ethiopia's reluctance to exchange information about the filling operations of the first and second Renaissance Dam.
He added - in an interview on Al Jazeera Mubasher - that Sudan expected this year to carry out the same filling approach without coordination, so he prepared for that by seizing about one billion cubic meters behind the Roseires dam to face the expected drop in water levels, but the second filling was completed quickly and the flood came at an above average rate early In the third week of July last year.
He continued, "Therefore, Sudan was forced to release the stored water to meet the large flows that continued in the Blue Nile in above-average quantities, as it reached in the first week of this August to about 810 million cubic meters per day and continued for the second week as well and then decreased in the third week."
And he added, "At the same time, the White Nile recorded flows that were not monitored during the past 100 years, as the flows were previously in the range of 60 to 70 million cubic meters per day, while this month they reached 120 and 130 million cubic meters."
"Sudan was forced to face three challenges, namely facing the second filling of the Renaissance Dam, the unprecedented flooding of the White Nile, and the flooding of the Blue Nile, which led to a change in the method of managing Sudanese dams to avoid damage to lives and property," he added.
On the damage caused by filling the Renaissance Dam for Sudan, he said that filling reduces the flow rates in terms of quantity and time, which threatens the population, agricultural and energy needs of the Blue Nile River and the main Nile.
He explained, "These are damages that occur in every filling process unless it is carried out in accordance with an agreement and technical evidence to seize the quantities of water and set timelines and engineering foundations, and then the damages are avoided."
The Sudanese Minister of Irrigation, Yasser Abbas, had said that the lack of information exchange forced Sudan to take costly precautionary measures that had a great economic and social impact.
Abbas stressed that one of the most important features of this year's flood is the large and unexpected revenue from the White Nile, which exceeds everything monitored during the previous 100 years, and that there is no impact of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on this year's flood in the country.