Qosh Tepa Canal

The Qosh Tepa Canal (Pashto, Uzbek: Qoʻshtepa kanali, Southern Uzbek) is a canal being built in northern Afghanistan to divert water from the Amu Darya. The main canal is expected to be 285 km long and the overall initiative seeks to convert 550,000 hectares of desert into farmland. The Qosh Tepa Canal starts in the Kaldar District of Balkh Province, then proceeds through Jowzjan Province and finally comes to an end in the Andkhoy District of Faryab Province. The Taliban-run government of Afghanistan has made the canal a priority project and the construction began in early 2022. Images supplied by Planet Labs showed that from April 2022 to February 2023 more than 100 km of the canal had been excavated. The first phase of the project was completed in October 2023, with the second phase immediately commencing, by December 2024 the second phase was ninety percent completed. The entire project is expected to be completed in late 2026. Independent experts and engineers have expressed skepticism and concern about the project, stating that the Afghan government does not possess the know-how to effectively complete the canal. In particular, they have noted that there is a lack of oversight with "rudimentary" construction methods being employed. In December 2023, it was reported that the canal had experienced a major breach, wit

Canal data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).