“I have taken the following figures from Sir William’s report and from the gauge records of the Public Works Ministry:—
Discharge in Cubic Metres per Second During February, March,
and April of the Albert Nile.
| 1901. | 1902. | 1903. | 1904. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| At Gondokoro above Bor | 600 | 600 | 700 | 1,000 |
| Upstream of the mouth of the Sobat river | 300 | 300 | 350 | 435 |
“Now, in a year like 1901 or 1902, with 600 cubic metres per second passing Gondokoro, the diversion canal might be allowed to take in 500 cubic metres per second, leaving 100 cubic metres per second for the Albert Nile, Atem river, and all the Nuer, Dinka, and Shillook country between Gondokoro and the Sobat mouth. An allowance of 100 cubic metres per second would not be liberal, and would probably result in the water becoming stagnant and very impure; but we shall leave that alone. Starting with 500 cubic metres per second of clear water the high level diversion canal would never lose less than 50 cubic metres per second through percolation and evaporation before it reached the Sobat mouth. Many authorities would put the loss at 40 per cent., but we shall say 10 per cent.
“We should then have 450 cubic metres per second entering the White Nile at its head, just at the end of the Albert Nile and at the mouth of the Sobat river. At this point, however, under normal conditions the Albert Nile would have been discharging 300 cubic metres per second. This supply, after the opening of the diversion canal, would have failed utterly, as the waters of the Albert Nile would have been diverted down the diversion canal. Whatever water there was in the Albert Nile would, moreover, have been at so low a level that it could not have flowed down the White Nile together with the high level water of the diversion canal. We should therefore have had in a year like 1901 and 1902 a net gain of 450 less 300 cubic metres per second, or 150 cubic metres per second at the head of the White Nile. By the time this extra water reached Assuân it would have become 100 cubic metres per second.
“If this project, or any other project of any kind, is ever to be carried out on the upper waters of the White Nile, the very first thing to be done will be to construct a weir or barrage at the outlet of the Albert Lake, at Wadelai, or lower down at Dufile. I should say, judging from the map and the cross section, that Wadelai itself would be an excellent site for a weir. I have advocated this project in season and out of season these ten years, and now that actual discharges and figures are before me I am more than ever convinced that I was no untrue prophet when I wrote in my book on “The Assuân Reservoir Dam and After” that “the point where Lake Albert ends and the Albert Nile begins to have a rapid and contracted stream will be the site of the future great regulator or barrage of the upper waters of the Nile. This work will be here or at Dufile.” Such a work would cost anything between £400,000 and £1,000,000.
“If such a work were carried out it would be possible to insure every year a discharge of between 1,000 and 1,500 cubic metres per second at Gondokoro from the 15th of January to the 15th of May, i.e., during the months which determine the summer water supply of the White Nile for Egypt. Such a quantity of water would insure 435 cubic metres per second at the head of the White Nile, as it has done this year, even under existing conditions; while with training and dredger work in the Albert Nile and Bahr Zeraf between Gondokoro and Lake No, it might be increased to 600 cubic metres per second, and even more. The way in which this work of training should be carried out has been admirably laid down on page 174 of Sir William’s Report”.
There are moreover other reasons I think for condemning the excavation of a straight cut 340 kilometres in length across the eastern corner of the Sudd regions. The reasons are to be found in Sir William Garstin’s Report itself. One of the most interesting features of this report is the number of actually measured discharges at different sites. Of all these sites Gondokoro, the southern key of the Sudd region, is the most interesting.
It is very evident from an examination of Sections Nos. 18, 19, 26 and 27, Plate VIII of Sir William’s Report, that the Albert Nile at Gondokoro scours out its bed very severely after a high flood like that of 1903. The width of the section is about 230 metres with vertical sides, and yet while a gauge of ·50 metres on the 1st April 1903 (after the low year of 1902) gave a section of 615 square metres; on the 9th September 1903 (after a good year), the section was 1,347 square metres for a gauge of 2.33 metres. In other words, a rise of 1.83 metres gave an increased section of 732 square metres; while, if the bed had not scoured, it would have been 421 square metres. We have here an increase of 311 square metres, or more than 1 metre of scour. All this happened in 5 months, and proves that the clear water of the lakes, when in volume, has a fine cutting edge.
In footnote (2) of page 116 of his Report, Sir William Garstin says that in the parts of the river where the sudd has been cleared there are indications that a scour of the bed has set in. Again, on page 55 of the appendix, he says that the removal of the sudds has caused the levels of the shallow lakes to fall. All this proves that if the spills and escapes from the Albert Nile were closed with ambatch, as proposed by Sir William Garstin on page 175, and a few dredgers put into the Albert Nile and the Zeraf river the expenditure of a sum of money very moderate indeed compared with £5,500,000 would in all probability result in the two rivers being so widened and deepened that they could carry the full summer supply of the lakes, and so there would be a resulting economy of over £4,500,000 in the new channel from Bor which, when it began working, might introduce on an aggravated scale all the difficulties of to-day in the Albert Nile.