Making water security: A morphological account of Nile River development

This dissertation examines Nile water security through the morphology of the river. Water projects are often legitimized by arguing that they will increase the reliability of water or increase its availability for abstract populations. Such analyses often leave unexplained who specifically benefit from these projects and, more so, who do not. Examining the morphology of the river – its form and structure – allows for a historical and material understanding of how hydraulic infrastructure and discourses of water security develop and what this means to whom. My aim is to better understand how scientists, engineers and water users engage in rearranging the morphology of the Nile and in so doing shape their relative positions vis-a-vis each other and the river. In this way the dissertation seeks to support more equitable and sustainable forms of Nile development.