![]() These habitats are largely intact and largely unaffected by industrial development and include 31 Siluroids, 16 Characoids, 14 Cyprinoids, 11 Momyrids, 8 Cichlids, and 7 Cyprinodonotids of fish communities. Key aquatic habitats range from open water and riverine to lacustrine and palustrine, which offer ideal spawning, rearing, growing, feeding and survival grounds for over a hundred species of fish. The Sudd has rich and abundant fish populations, a response to the favourable environmental conditions for recruitment and survival offered by its mosaic of habitat types. A large number of inter-African bird migrants also rely on the Sudd and surrounding habitats as a dry season refuge. ![]() It forms part of the East-Asian/East African flyway of Palearctic birds, linking breeding ranges in central-Europe and Asia with winter ranges to the south. The Sudd is an important wintering ground for some of the migratory birds such as the Great White Pelican ( Pelecanus onocrotalus), Black Crowned Crane ( Balearica pavonina), White Stork ( Ciconia ciconia) and Black Tern ( Chlidonias niger). Notable wildlife species include the African elephants ( Loxodonta africana), Nile lechwe ( Kobus megaceros) endemic to South Sudan, tiang migration ( Damaliscus lunatus tiang), white-eared kob migration ( Kobus kob thomasi), buffalo ( Syncerus caffer), and bird species include the shoebill ( Balaeniceps rex). It is internationally recognised for its unique ecological attributes that include various endangered mammalian species, antelope migrations, millions of Palaearctic migratory birds and large fish populations. The Sudd wetland falls within the “Sudd-Sahelian Flooded Grasslands and Savannas” WWF Global 200 eco-region. These habitats exhibit strong environmental gradients with pronounced short and long-term variations in biomass production and distribution. Patterns of flood inundation heavily influence the Sudd’s vegetation, which consists primarily of permanent swamps, river and rain flooded grasslands, and floodplain woodlands. The White Nile dissipates northwards from Juba across a shallow depression to produce a network of channels, lagoons and inundated areas, which harness the nutrients of the underlying clay soils. It is sustained by the flow of the White Nile (or Bahr el Jebel) from Lake Victoria in Uganda, in addition to rainfall runoff from its surrounding areas. In the wet season the size of the wetland increases up to 90,000 km² and gradually decreases to about 42,000 km² depending on high seasonal flood. The extent of the Sudd wetlands is highly variable it depends largely on the seasons and years respectively. The Sudd wetland, with an estimated area of approximately 57,000 km 2 represents one of the largest freshwater ecosystems in the world.
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