Since the establishment of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), there has been a balanced perspective advocating for cooperation between the downstream countries of Egypt and Sudan and Ethiopia in the effective management of the dam. Experts argue that Egypt and Sudan, as the downstream nations, should be more concerned about the safety of the dam structure than Ethiopia itself, because any structural failure could transform the reservoir's waters into a catastrophic flood that would devastate their lands. Ethiopia continuously claims the dam's strength, but studies regularly raise alarms about the potential seismic activity linked to the immense volume of water held by the reservoir, presenting a long-term risk to the dam's integrity.

A new international research team has provided a deeper analysis, considering not only the seismic hazards but also additional risks such as groundwater leakage and the subsidence or deformation of the dam body. This comprehensive study involved researchers from various countries, including Egypt, China, India, the United States, and Nepal, and highlights a multi-faceted danger related to the dam's structure. Their findings were published in the "International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction," shining a light on the urgent need for a collaborative approach to monitoring and managing the dam’s safety to prevent potential disasters that would impact all countries involved.