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

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.

Author(s): Dessalegn Worku Ayalew

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