SUDD

Great swamps of the Upper Nile.

Sudd (in Arabic, sadd, or barrier) was the word used by European and Arab merchants to describe the largest swamps in the world, which are situated on the Upper Nile in Sudan. It had prevented passage up the Nile River until 1841, when Salim Qapudan, acting on the orders of Muhammad Ali Pasha, viceroy of Egypt, was the first person to pass through its labyrinthine channels. Although open to navigation, the Sudd continues to present a formidable barrier to the passage of water from the equatorial lakes to Sudan and Egypt. Its size expands and contracts depending on the amount of water from the lakes, and its slope, only a few inches per mile, spreads any additional water across the Nilotic plain. The average annual amount of water flowing into the Sudd in the twentieth century is 33 billion cubic meters, of which only half, some 16 billion cubic meters, leaves the Sudd for Sudan and Egypt. In 1976 the French Compagnie de Constructions Internationales (CCI) began the excavation of the Jonglei Canal to permit water from the Lake Plateau to bypass the swamps. The excavation of the 225-mile canal past the Sudd threatened to disrupt the seasonal movement of livestock and the migrations of great herds of African wildlife. When the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), led by John Garang de Mabior, revolted against the Sudan government in May 1983, his forces terminated the canal's construction at mile 166. It has never been resumed.

see also nile river.

Bibliography

Collins, Robert. The Nile. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.

Howell, Paul P.; Lock, M.; and Cobb, S. The Jonglei Canal: Impact and Opportunity. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

robert o. collins

sudd floating vegetation obstructing the White Nile. XIX. — Arab. sudd obstruction.