The Bahr el Zeraf (Arabic: بَـحْـر الـزّرَاف, romanized: Baḥr ez-Zerāf, also known as the Giraffe or Phow River in the English language,[2] is an arm of the White Nile in the Sudd region of South Sudan.

[3] The Bahr el Zeraf forms in the southern Sudd wetlands as an arm of the Bahr al Jabal ("Mountain Nile") section of the White Nile.

A pair of man-made canals known as the Zeraf Cuts were dug in 1910 and 1913[4] to connect the two rivers at 7°46′05″N 30°34′01″E / 7.768°N 30.567°E / 7.768; 30.567.

[5] These canals divert some of the Jabal's flow, more than doubling the Zeraf's volume, with the intention of accelerating the flow to Egypt and thereby reducing the water "lost" to evaporation and transpiration in the swamps.

About 100 kilometres (62 mi) of this distance is through continuous swamp with islands, transitioning further downstream to a well-defined channel with raised banks.