| Jonglei Canal | |
|---|---|
 Sarah, a digger used to dig the Jonglei Canal, has remained in its current location since 1983, when canal construction ended. | |
| Coordinates | 7°0′47″N 31°30′29″E / 7.01306°N 31.50806°E |
| Specifications | |
| Status | Incomplete |
 | |
The Jonglei Canal was a canal project started, but never completed, to divert water from the vast Sudd wetlands of South Sudan so as to deliver more water downstream to Sudan and Egypt for use in agriculture. Sir William Garstin proposed the idea of the canal in 1907; the government of Egypt conducted a study in 1946; and plans took shape between 1954 and 1959 during the period of decolonization which included Sudanese independence in 1956. Against the context of Sudan's postcolonial civil conflict, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), led by John Garang, halted construction of the canal in 1984.
The dispute over the Jonglei Canal, and access to Nile waters,[1] added a significant environmental dimension to the post-1983, second Sudanese civil war, in which disputes over the religious, linguistic, and cultural elements of Sudanese national identity also played prominent roles.[2][3][4]
- ^ Waterbury, John (1979). Hydropolitics of the Nile Valley. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-2192-2. OCLC 5126213.
- ^ Collins, Robert O. (1990). The waters of the Nile : hydropolitics and the Jonglei Canal, 1900-1988. Oxford [England]: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-821784-6. OCLC 20592970.
- ^ Woodward, Peter (1990). Sudan, 1898-1989 : the unstable state. Thomas Leiper Kane Collection. Boulder: L. Rienner Publishers. ISBN 1-55587-193-3. OCLC 20318707.
- ^ Lesch, Ann (1998). The Sudan: Contested National Identities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253334322.