According to this plan, a cascade-like system of weirs was
to be constructed along the Nile course from its source to the delta to make
the best use of the water. Parts of this plan had already been realized when
Nasser began the construction of the Aswan High Dam, which he favoured
for political reasons. So in 1954 the Owen-Falls Dam at the exit of the Nile
from Lake Victoria was completed. The construction of similar dams at Lake
Albert and Lake Tana was to follow. According to the plan, dams were also
to be built at Nimule, Merowe and Wadi Halfa in the Sudan, as well as in
Wadi er-Rayan, south of Faiyum in Egypt. The Sennar Dam built in 1925 and
the Roseires Dam built in 1966, as well as the Jonglei Canal project, were
also part of the plan for the Sudan. It was hoped that the latter bypass canal
would avoid the considerable water losses of the Nile and its tributaries in
the Sudd area, and it had already been largely constructed, when in 1983 its
completion was made impossible by the resurgence of the civil war in the
Sudan. Discussions about the canal had, however, also been controversial for
ecological reasons, since it would have utterly changed the habitat of the local
southern Sudanese population. After CAPMAS (1987: 59), the realization of
the Century Storage Plan would have rendered the construction of the Sadd
el-Ali superfluous.