The
Great Man-Made River (
GMR, ) is a network of pipes that supplies
waterWater is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H
2O. Its molecule contains one oxygen and to hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state, water vapor or...
to the Sahara Desert in
LibyaLibya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa...
, from the
Nubian Sandstone Aquifer SystemThe Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System is the world’s largest fossil water aquifer system. It is located underground in the Eastern end of the Sahara Desert and spans the political boundaries of four countries in north-eastern Africa.-Overview:...
fossil aquiferFossil water or paleowater is groundwater that has remained sealed in an aquifer for a long period of time. Water can rest underground in "fossil aquifers" for thousands or even millions of years...
.
The Guinness World Records 2008 book has acknowledged this as the world's largest irrigation project.
According to its website, it is the largest underground network of
pipesPipes may refer to:*Pipes, cylindrical conveyances*PIPES *Yahoo! Pipes*Pipeline *Bagpipes or Uilleann pipes*PIPE deal or private investment in public equity*Pipes , a Transformers character...
and aqueducts in the world. It consists of more than 1,300 wells, most more than 500 m
deepIn the oil and gas industry, depth in a well is the measurement, for any point in that well, of the distance between a reference point or elevation, and that point...
, and supplies 6,500,000 m³ of
freshwaterFreshwater or fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Freshwater is characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids...
per day to the cities of
TripoliTripoli is the largest city and capital of Libya....
,
BenghaziBenghazi or Bengasi is the second largest city in Libya and the main city of the Cyrenaica region . The wider metropolitan area is also a district of Libya...
,
SirtSirt, also Surt and Sirte is a city in Libya, in the Surt District, seat of some important governmental institutions and birthplace of the Libyan leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi...
and elsewhere.
Muammar al-GaddafiMuammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi
1 has been the dictator of Libya since a coup in 1969....
has described it as the "
Eighth Wonder of the WorldThe Seven Wonders of the World is a well known list of remarkable constructions of classical antiquity. It was based on guidebooks popular among the ancient Hellenic tourists...
."
History
In 1953, efforts to find
oilPetroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, toxic, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, and other organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface.The term petroleum was first used in the treatise De...
in southern Libya led to the discovery of huge quantities of fresh water underground. The GMRP was conceived in the late 1960s and work on the project began in 1984. The project's construction was divided into five logically separate phases. The first phase required 85 million m³ of excavation and was inaugurated on August 28, 1991. The second phase (dubbed
First water to Tripoli) was inaugurated on September 1, 1996.
The project is owned by the Great Man-Made River Project Authority and funded by the Libyan government.
Brown & RootKBR, Inc. is an American engineering and construction company, formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton, headquartered in Houston. The company also has large offices in Arlington, Birmingham and Dallas. After Halliburton acquired Dresser Industries in 1998, Dresser's engineering subsidiary, The M. W...
and Price Brothers were responsible for the original design, and the primary contractor for the first phases was Dong Ah Consortium (a South Korean construction company) and present main contractor is Al Nahr Company Ltd. This company was registered in
England and WalesEngland and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
as a foreign company FC017848 until July 31, 2003.
The imported goods from several worldwide Countries (such as Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan etc.) destined to the construction of the GMRP arrived by sea via the entry port of Marsa el Brega (Sirte Gulf).
The total cost of the project is projected at more than US$25 billion. Libya claims to have completed the work to date without the financial support of major countries or loans from world banks. Since 1990
UNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on 16 November 1945...
has provided training to engineers and technicians involved with the project. 172 people died in the construction.
The fossil
aquiferAn aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials from which groundwater can be usefully extracted using a water well. The study of water flow in aquifers and the characterization of aquifers is called hydrogeology...
from which this water is being supplied is the
Nubian Sandstone Aquifer SystemThe Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System is the world’s largest fossil water aquifer system. It is located underground in the Eastern end of the Sahara Desert and spans the political boundaries of four countries in north-eastern Africa.-Overview:...
. It accumulated during the last ice age and is not currently being replenished. If 2007 rates of retrieval are not increased,the water could last a thousand years. According to a Nubian Aquifer Project publication, "one expert says that, at current rates of consumption, reserves could be diminished in as short a time period as 100 to 500 years".
A large, recently-settled lawsuit between the Libyan government and Brasoil, a subsidiary of the
Brazilian national oil companyPetrobras , short for Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., is a semi-public Brazilian multinational energy company headquartered in Rio de Janeiro....
, arose from the project. Brasoil was contracted to drill many of the
wellsA water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
in the early stages of the project. Many (hundreds) of the wells in the project collapsed or failed prematurely for unexplained reasons.
Timeline
- 3 October 1983: The General People's Congress held an extraordinary session to draft the resolutions of the basic people's Congresses, which decided to fund and execute the Great Man-Made River Project.
- 28 August 1984: Muammar al-Gaddafi
Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi
1 has been the dictator of Libya since a coup in 1969....
lays the foundation stone in Sarir area for the commencement of the construction of the Great Man-Made River Project.
- 28 August 1986: Muammar al-Qaddafi inaugurated the Brega plant for the production of the Pre-stressed Concrete Cylinder pipes, which are considered the largest pipes made with pre-stressed steel wire (the majority of steel wire was made in Italy by the Redaelli Tecna S.p.A. company with its head office in Cologno Monzese - Milan and its factory in Caivano-Naples). Sarir plant was also inaugurated on this date.
- 26 August 1989: Muammar al-Qaddafi lays the foundation stone for phase II of the Great Man-Made River Project.
First water arrival
- 11 September 1989: to Ajdabiya
Ajdabiya was one of the districts of Libya. It lay in the northeastern part of the country. Its capital was Ajdabiya. As of 2007 it was subsumed within the enlarged Al Wahat District....
reservoir.
- 28 September 1989: to Grand Omar Muktar reservoir.
- 4 September 1991: to Al Gardabiya reservoir.
- 28 August 1996: to Tripoli
Tripoli is the largest city and capital of Libya....
.
- 28 September 2007: to Gharyan
Gharyan or Garian was one of the districts of Libya. It was located in the northwest part of the country and its capital was Gharyan...
.
External links