Libya's Great Man-Made River
Gran Río Artificial de Libia
- Date
- 1984-1991 · confidence high
- Place
- Ajdabiya, Cyrenaica, Libya
- Credited to
- Libyan government; Korean and other firms
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A network of concrete pipes thousands of kilometres long that carries fossil water from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer, under the Sahara, to coastal cities. The first phase was inaugurated in 1991 and it is one of the world's largest water projects.
The project was conceived in the 1960s-1970s and carried out in phases from 1984 onwards; its cost and cost-effectiveness are much debated and the coordinates show one node of the network, not a single point.
What it led to
- supply to Tripoli, Benghazi and Sirte with non-renewable water
- desert irrigation with fossil waters
- debate over the sustainability of fossil aquifer use