ENRUC Workshop – Cross-Border Collaboration for Water and Land Management in the Eastern Nile Basin

The event brought together scientists and researchers from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan with the aim of tackling the challenges of sustainable water and land management together in a transboundary basin. Participants shared insights on cutting-edge technologies and research, including AI-powered hydrological modeling, open-source data integration and nature-based solutions for climate adaptation.

In addition, participants discussed the continuity of the network and the prioritization of activities that align with current regional needs, such as training initiatives and collaborative research frameworks.

In this sense, the focus was placed in particular on the establishment of a geodata portal, which the participants largely embraced as a transformative platform for centralizing open source datasets and research-generated findings and highlighted as a strategic asset. As a unified hub for Nile Basin data, they saw the portal with its publicly accessible resources and academic findings as strengthening cross-border scientific collaboration as well as the continuity of the ENRUC network and its relevance. By facilitating knowledge exchange and institutionalizing data-driven practices, the portal strengthens the network's capacity to address basin-wide challenges. The workshop thus underscored the important role of ENRUC in linking scientific expertise with practical governance strategies for the Eastern Nile Basin.

The event concluded with a visit to the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR) in Koblenz. Here, the participants gained valuable insights into cross-border governance frameworks and institutional collaboration. In their presentations, the ICPR, the Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) and the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) emphasized best practices and basin-wide coordination and offered actionable lessons with potential relevance for the management of the Nile Basin.