Libya's Great Manmade River and implications on the Nubian aquifer

The previous post investigated how Morocco and Tunisia responded to water-scarcity in the region by using complex water sectors. Yet these sectors were limited, and tied to colonial history. Today’s post will explore another response to water scarcity in the region: Libya’s Great Manmade River. 

In the mid-1980s, the Gaddafi government decided to exploit underground water resources that were previously discovered while exploring the Saharan desert in search of oil (Wheida and Verhoeven, 2007). The construction of the Great Manmade River (GMR) was thus initiated in 1984. 

The GMR is one of the greatest hydraulic infrastructures in the world equipped with a unique system. Throughout the four thousand kilometres of pipeline, groundwater is first extracted in water-rich, unpopulated southern cities of Kufrah and Sarir. Groundwater is then discharged in a reservoir near Ajdaba on the Mediterranean coast. It is finally conveyed through several branches to the east and to the west of the dry, widely populated Mediterranean coast (Fig. 1) (Wheida and Verhoeven, 2007).

Figure 1: Great Manmade River Project (Wheida and Verhoeven, 2007).

The GMR however pumps fossil waters from the Nubian Aquifer System (NAS), which is non-renewable - it would take 30,000 years to renew these waters (Joffé, 2016). Furthermore, the groundwater table of the NAS has started to decline and oases have started to shrank since the start of the Libyan project (Voss and Soliman, 2014). Libya is however not the only one to blame for such environmental outcomes. The NAS Aquifer is also shared by Egypt, Sudan and Chad (Fig. 2 (b)). Figure 2 (c) reveals that Egypt and Sudan also carry out large-scale groundwater development projects (Voss and Soliman, 2014). To harmonise interests and manage knock-effects of water extraction of the NAS, the four riparian countries were obliged to cooperate and agreed to join the Joint Authority for the Study and Development of the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer that was created by Egypt and Libya in 1982 (Alker, 2008). 

Figure 2: (a) Overview of NAS in Africa, (b) Overview of NAS in raparian countries (red line) (c) Partial groundwater capture zones for NAS development areas. (Voss and Soliman, 2014)

To return to Libya, the GMR project was embedded in discourses of power. Although the project was conducted without any foreign support, unlike many Moroccan or Tunisian hydraulic infrastructures undertaken under the French protectorate (seen in the previous post), the GMR was once again designed to benefit those politically in control. The GMR fit into Colonel Gaddafi’s propaganda discourse. The project was constructed with the aim of showing the power of Libya and Gaddafi's government to the world, and especially to the West by which Colonel Gaddafi was highly criticised (Video 1) (Sternberg, 2016). A picture of Gaddafi notably still features to this day the official website of the GRM (Fig. 3).

Figure 3: Screenshot of GRM official website featuring former dictator Gaddafi (AlGaddafi.org, 2016)  

Video 1: Pipeline to Paradise (Gaddafi's Gift to Libya) (Spinler, 2001)

Considering the previous posts, are any projects in North Africa conducted for development and only for that purpose? Or are hydrological infrastructures always a way to exert power? These questions will be elaborated in the next concluding post.