Ibrahimiya Canal

Ibrahimiya Canal

The Ibrahimiyah Canal is an irrigation canal in Egypt built in 1873. It was the most important public work executed under the then newly established Ministry of Public Works. It was built during the reign of Ismail Pasha when he was Khedive of Egypt. It was commissioned by Bahgat Pasha, minister of public works, who designed it primarily to provide perennial irrigation to the Khedivial sugar estates in Middle Egypt. It supplied perennial irrigation to 580,000 acres (2,300 km2) and flood irrigation to another 420,000 acres (1,700 km2). The discharge of the canal varied between 30 and 80 cubic metres per second in summer and between 500 and 900 cubic metres per second in flood. Having its head on the left bank of the Nile, opposite Assiut, it runs northwards for 60 kilometres and then divides in Dirout into two main branches; one branch is the Bahr Yousef Canal, while the other is the Ibrahimiyah Canal proper.

This 350 kilometer long canal, which is undoubtedly one of the largest artificial canals in the world, used to take off from the Nile without any weirs or inlet works on the river (the water of the river entered it freely). Sir William Willcocks, the famous British civil engineer, would construct the Assiut Barrage later in 1901 to provide means for better control of its discharge.

Although locks were constructed through its southern third, Ibrahimya Canal is not navigable after Deirut as it was designed for irrigation purposes only. The Ibrahimiya, except at few locations where it follows portions of ancient canals, flows parallel to the Nile, and does not have between itself and the river a distance of more than 4 to 5 kilometres.