The power of hydrology in the Omo-Gibe River Basin : Gibe III and flood retreat agriculture on the river omo

Abstract: My work discusses how Gibe III is a Sustainable Development but is not sustainable. Along the river Omo are tribes and, unlike Gibe III which utilizes instrumental rationality to harness the flow of the River Omo for the production of hydroelectricity, they plant crops after the flow from the hydrological cycle floods the riverbanks with water and nutrients. I simplified Hägerstrand’s (2001) System of Nested Domains into three levels: the local, meso-level, and landscape. Using the nested domains, I outline part of a vast interconnected web between the multinational institutions in the Lower Omo. In the meso-level, by combing Arturo Escobar’s (2015 (a)) writing of a One World World with Erik Swyngedouw’s (2004) description of Glob/calization, I describe the prolongation of a dominant image of thought which extends into the multitude of worlds on Earth. The localization of a global network of institutes impedes the flow of the river and, in turn, uses the water in the local river to transmit hydroelectricity into the Eastern Africa Power Pool. Gibe III - by impeding the flow of the river Omo - generates hydroelectricity through glob/calization. Gibe III lowering the water level of the river causes a change to the environmental conditions downstream. In the local level, I use a hydrosocial perspective to frame how Flood Retreat Agriculture (FRA) is a dimension of the Omo and different to Gibe III. On the one hand is a hydrological cycle that annually floods a river and deposits nutrients into the river banks and, on the other, Gibe III utilizes the river to generate hydroelectricity. FRA occurs in tandem with the hydrological cycle and Gibe III exports hydroelectricity and redirects water to industrial scale agriculture. As the tribes have lived in the Lower Omo for thousands of years, Sustainability has persisted through the changes of climate in the Lower Omo and does not hide behind a false sense of power generated through a hydropower dam. To transmit how the tribes are a model for sustainability in the Omo I restate the aim of the Transicones to convey how the tribes return to the river for FRA at the same time as the repetition of annual flood in the River Omo. In the Lower Omo, Sustainability is observed through the hydrological cycle of the Omo-Gibe River Basin by the repetition of FRA with the annual flood of the River Omo.