Coulomb stress analysis for several filling and operational scenarios at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam impoundment

Increased demand for power generation coupled with changing seasonal water uncertainty has caused a worldwide increase in the construction of large hydrologic engineering structures. That said, the soon-to-be-completed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) will impound the Blue Nile River in Western Ethiopia and its reservoir will encompass ~ 1763 km(2) and store ~ 67 Gt (km(3)) of surface water. The impoundment will undergo maximum seasonal load changes of ~ 28 to ~ 36 Gt during projected seasonal hydroelectric operations. The GERD impoundment will cause significant subsurficial stresses, and could possibly trigger seismicity in the region. This study examines Coulomb stress and hydrologic load centroid movements for several GERD impoundment and operational scenarios. The maximum subsurficial Coulomb stress applied on optimally oriented fault planes from the full impoundment is ~ 186 kPa and over 30% of our model domain incurs Coulomb stresses ≥ 10 kPa, regardless of the impoundment period length. The main driver behind Coulomb stress and load centroid motion during impoundment is the annual, accumulated daily reservoir storage change. The maximum Coulomb stresses from the highest amplitude season of five long-term operational scenarios are around 36, 33, 29, 41, and 24% of the total maximum stresses from the entire GERD impoundment. Variations in annual Coulomb stresses during modeled GERD operations are attributed to the seasonal load per unit area, and partially to the initial seasonal water level. The spatial patterns and amplitudes of these stress tensors are closely linked to both the size and timing of GERD inflow/outflow rates, and an improved understanding of the magnitude and extent of these stresses provides useful information to water managers to better understand potential reservoir triggered seismic events from several different operational and impoundment strategies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12665-021-09591-w.