Canals, pumps, fossil aquifers, and inland-sea dreams. Some pipes exist. Few of the climates they promised do.
Proposed 1938 (revised 1941-42). Not constructed. Reassessed by CSIRO for the National Water Grid Authority (reports 2021).
A 1930s plan to pipe wet-tropics water into dry inland Australia. It was never built. Modern hydrology still says the water is less, and the bill is larger, than the dream.
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Launched 1997 as the South Valley / Toshka scheme. Pumping station and Sheikh Zayed Canal built. Work stalled about 2008; revived from 2020. Status: partial.
Pump Lake Nasser into the Western Desert and grow a second Nile valley. The pumps and the canal exist. The 1997 population-and-farm dream does not.
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Construction from 1983; first water to Benghazi 1991, later phases through the 2000s. Operating, below design. Status: built and struggling.
The largest fossil-water pipeline ever built. It still drinks a desert that does not refill on a human clock, and it now runs at less than half of design.
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Large-scale irrigation expansion from the 1960s. Collapse through the 1980s-2000s. Kokaral Dam 2005. Status: failed as a sea; partial northern recovery.
Cotton took the rivers. The world’s fourth-largest lake became a desert. The North Aral has a small, engineered second life. The south does not.
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Ideas from the early twentieth century; German-backed feasibility work in the 1970s (including nuclear-excavation talk). Ministerial committee from 2016. Seawater scheme rejected May 2026. Status: proposed: never built.
Flood a below-sea-level desert with the Mediterranean and make hydropower from the fall. Egypt studied it for a century and, in 2026, formally said no.
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Overall plan 2002. Eastern route phase 1 operating November 2013; middle route phase 1 December 2014. Western route still planning. Status: ongoing (partial).
The largest inter-basin transfer now running. Two routes move Yangtze water north. The western mountain route is still a plan. The social and ecological bill is not a rumour.
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Davydov-type schemes from 1949; design work in the 1970s-80s (Sibaral and European variants). Halted by Central Committee and Council of Ministers, 14 August 1986. Status: proposed: cancelled.
Turn the Ob and Yenisey south, refill Central Asia, tame the sukhovei. The Politburo killed the drawings in 1986. No canal was dug.
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British-era ideas from the 1900s; studies 1946 and 1954-59. Construction 1978-1984. About 240 km of ~360 km excavated. Status: failed / incomplete.
Bypass the Sudd so more White Nile water reaches Sudan and Egypt. About two-thirds of the cut was dug. War stopped the machine. The wetland is still there.
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