SPS Blue Nile at EGU25 in Vienna, Austria

SPS Blue Nile at EGU 2025 – AI, Hydrology and Climate Resilience in Focus

At this year’s European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly, held in Vienna from 28 April to 2 May 2025, the SPS Blue Nile project presented its recent cutting-edge research that bridges artificial intelligence, hydrology, and climate adaptation for the Blue Nile river basin.

Rebecca Wiegels, PhD student at KIT, presented Seasonal AFNOCast – a deep learning approach leveraging the Adapted Fourier Neural Operator (AFNO) to bias-correct and downscale seasonal forecasts. Her talk demonstrated how this AI-driven method substantially enhances the resolution and skill of seasonal predictions, with direct relevance for agriculture, water management, and climate services.
👉 Read the abstract

Prof. Dr. Axel Bronstert and Dr. Morteza Zargar (University of Potsdam) highlighted how hydrological and sediment forecasting can improve informed, sustainable water resource planning in the Upper Blue Nile Basin, especially in the context of the new Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Their poster showcased the integration of the WASA-SED model with ECMWF-SEAS5 seasonal forecast data to predict seasonal water and sediment discharges in the Blue Nile system. It also emphasized the critical role of rainfall dataset evaluation for reliable long-term water management planning.
👉 View the poster abstract

Yasir Hageltom, another SPS Blue Nile PhD researcher, introduced a promising subseasonal crop yield forecasting framework, combining the WRF atmospheric model with process-based crop modelling (WRF-NoahMP-Crop). His work aims to improve early-warning systems and support climate-resilient agricultural decisions in regions facing growing food security challenges.
👉 Explore the contribution

These contributions opened up fruitful discussions and drew interest from fellow researchers across disciplines – highlighting not only the scientific value but also the practical impact of the SPS Blue Nile project.