Jonglei Canal

Jonglei Canal
Lucy, a digger used to dig the Jonglei canal, has remained in its current location since 1983, when canal construction ended.
Specifications
Status	Incomplete

The Jonglei Canal is a canal project that has been proposed, started but never completed to divert water through the vast Sudd wetlands of South Sudan so as to deliver more water downstream to Sudan and Egypt for use in agriculture.

Due to the Sudd swamp, the water from the southwestern tributaries of the Nile, the Bahr el Ghazal system, for all practical purposes does not reach the main river and is lost through evaporation and transpiration. Hydrogeologists in the 1930s proposed digging a canal east of the Sudd which would divert water from the Bahr al Jabal above the Sudd to a point farther down the White Nile, bypassing the swamps and carrying the White Nile's waters directly to the main channel of the river.

Sir William Garstin, Undersecretary of State of Public Works of Egypt, created the first detailed proposal for digging a canal east of the Sudd in 1907. By bypassing the swamps, it was calculated that evaporation of the Nile's water would vastly decrease, allowing an increase in the area of cultivatable land in Egypt by two million acres.

The Jonglei canal scheme was first studied by the government of Egypt in 1946 and plans were developed in 1954-59. Construction work on the canal began in 1978 but the outbreak of political instability in Sudan has held up work for many years. By 1984 when the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) brought the works to a halt, 240 km of the canal of a total of 360 km had been excavated.

The rusting remains of the giant German-built excavation machine – nicknamed "Sarah" - are visible in satellite images near the south end of the canal. It was damaged by a missile. As peace was restored in 2000, speculation grew about a restart of the project. However on February 2, 2008, the Sudanese Government said the revival of the project was not a priority. However, in 2008, Sudan and Egypt agreed to restart the project and finish the canal after 24 years.

It is estimated that the Jonglei canal project would divert 3.5-4.8 x 10⁹ m³ of water per year (equal to a mean annual discharge of 110–152 m³/s (3,883-5,368 ft³/s), an increase of around five to seven per cent of Egypt's current supply.