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SUDD

Sudd is located at the southern Sudan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudd

Sudd stretches from Mongalla at the south to near Sobat confluence with white Nile just upstream of Malakal as well as westwards along the Bahr El Ghazal . Covers 500 km south-north & 200 km west-east

Patrick Denny 1984

General information about Sudd

Topographically Sudd area was divided to three categories

1- High land (Free flooded)

2-The intermediate land (seasonally flooded)

3- Permanent swamp (Always under water)

Surface area ~ 30 000 to 40 000 km2 . It extends to 130 000 km2 during the wet season

Sudd area generally flat composed of clayish soils

Rain falls from April to Nov. and peak of the rainfall in August and the dry period extends from Nov. to March- Varying from 900 mm/yr (south) & 800 mm/yr (north)

Average Temp.Dry season 30 -33o CRainy season 26 -28o C

M. A. H. Shamseddin et al , 2006

Sudd is one of the largest wetland on the Nile river and considered the largest in Africa.

Sudd is an Arabic word mean Barrier

The Sudd swamp is considered as a potential water resource of Sudan and Egypt (6 milliard cubic meters of water will be saved for Sudan from the swampy area.

Several studies have been done to estimate the evaporation from Sudd swamp by results from those studies were a inconsistent

due to

1- The inacceibility of the area 2- The vast areas of swamp

3- complexity of the dynamic behavior of the swamp during the year (permanents and seasonal flooded areas

4- Civil war

Also Sudd is the largest freshwater wetland in the Nile basin

Mohamed 2005and Sutcliffe et al,1999 divided the area into three distinctive basins1- Bahr El –Jebel2- Bahr El – Ghazal3- The Sobat basin

Shamseddin et al, 2006 referred to the above three basin as wetland and swamp but Sudd donate to Bahr El Jebel swamp.

J, V, SUTCLIFFE* & Y, P. PARKS, 1987

Bahr El Jebel river originates form Lake Victoria

Outflow of Lake Victoria causes Sudd extension particularly in rainy seasons

Uganda

Tanzania

Kenya

It is 68,800 square kilometers (26,560 mi²) in size

Half of the White Nile river flow is lost I the Sudd area because of evaporation

*Jonglei canal (360 km) is project was aimed to reduce water losses in Sudd area due to the evaporation. Project began in 1978 , but stopped or not completed due to civil war .

*1984 - 2/3 (240 km)of Jonglei canal already accomplished and stopped due to civil war

*Due to the less channel capacities and high flows, the excess flow of Baher El Jebel river leave through small channels on both sides of the river and created the swamp. also during 1960th increase in Lake Victoria discharge led to 2.5 size increase of permanent swamp and seasonal floodplains

The expectation of producing is 4.8x 109 m3/yr J, V, SUTCLIFFE* & Y, P. PARKS, 1987

Y. A. Mohamed et al , 2005

Sudd Humidity & temperature

More than 115 satellite images with SEBAL (Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land) used to obtain monthly evaporation map for years 1995,1999 and 2000.

Y. A. Mohamed et al , 2005

The monthly measure of Mangalla inflow and outflow (1905 -1980) rainfall season and low evaporation the outflow of the swamp is constant (~ half of inflow)

J, V, SUTCLIFFE* & Y, P. PARKS, 1987

Recent Nile river

Recent river in Sudd region

References

G. Petersen1, J. A. Abeya2, and N. Fohrer3 , Spatio-temporal water body and vegetation changes in the Nile swamps of southern Sudan, European Geosciences Union, 2007

Patrick Denny, Permanent swamp vegetation of the Upper Nile, Hydrobiologia, 1984

Y. A. Mohamed, H. H. G. Savenije, W. G. M. Bastiaanssen, and B. J. J. M. van den Hurk, New lessons on the Sudd hydrology learned from remote sensing and climate modeling, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 2005

M. A. H. Shamseddin, T. Hata, A. Tada, M. A. Bashir, and T. Tanakamaru, Estimation of flooded area in the Bahr El-Jebel basin using remote sensing techniques, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 2006

J, V, SUTCLIFFE* & Y, P. PARKS, Hydrofogical modelling of the Sudd and Jonglei Canal, Hydrological Sciences, 1987

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudd