Assessing sediments export from the Nile to the Suez Canal and the associated risk to global shipping

The Suez Canal is a major bottleneck of global shipping. The stranding of the Ever Given, one of the world's largest container ships, in early 2021 showed how much global supply chains depend on the Suez Canal. The canal navigability directly depends on the incoming fluxes of sediments, either through the entrance on the Mediterranean Sea or from smaller tributaries along the canal. Here we model the hydrodynamics of the southeastern Mediterranean Sea, Suez canal and northern Gulf of Suez with the multi-scale ocean model SLIM (www.slim-ocean.be). The model can locally achieve a resolution of about 50 m and hence explicitly describes the flow through the narrow branches of the canal. The hydrodynamic model is then used to drive a sediment transport model that represents the dynamics of several types of sediments originating from the Nile delta, from shorelines along the Mediterranean Sea, and from inland channels connecting the Nile to the Suez Canal. Model results allow us to estimate the sediment deposition rate within the canal under present and future climate, and for different land and river management scenarios. The latter include the impact of existing and future dams along the Nile River and irrigation practices within the Nile Delta. Our result suggest that the Nile River management directly impacts the Suez canal navigability. This interconnection between the Nile River and the Suez Canal calls for an integrative management strategy.