Libya’s Great Man-Made River exposes water crisis amid political instability

The Great Man-Made River (GMMR)—a project once heralded by Muammar Gaddafi as a transformative force for Libya's desert landscape—now serves as a stark reminder of the country's water challenges amid persistent political instability. 

In a region known for its arid climate and water scarcity, Libya has invested heavily in a monumental infrastructure project designed to secure its water supply, Caliber.Az reports citing the article.

The Great Man-Made River (GMMR) is an ambitious network of pipes and reservoirs that stretches across the country. With a budget estimated at $25 billion, it transports high-quality freshwater from ancient aquifers beneath the Sahara Desert to Libya's coastal regions, where most of its population resides. This massive project serves as a crucial water source for Libya, providing essential resources for domestic, agricultural, and industrial use. However, it has faced numerous challenges in recent years.

Conceived in the 1950s alongside Libya's discovery of oil, the GMMR was developed under Muammar Gaddafi's regime, which came to power in 1969. The project aimed to offer a sustainable alternative to Libya's overexploited coastal aquifers and the costly desalination process. According to the Great Man-Made River Authority (GMMRA), which was awarded the construction contract in 1983, the GMMR is "of crucial and strategic importance" as it could be "the sole solution to the drinking, irrigation, and industrial water shortage problem in Libya." Dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World" by Libya’s late leader Muammar Gaddafi, the Great Man-Made River (GMMR) lives up to its grand title.

The GMMRA estimates that approximately five million tons of cement were used to construct the pipes, with raw materials sufficient to build "20 Great Pyramids of Giza." The steel wires employed in the pipe construction are long enough to circle the Earth 280 times. Spanning about 1,750 miles, the network is designed to transport up to 6.5 million cubic meters of fresh underground water per day when operating at full capacity. Since its first water delivery in 1989, the GMMR has been crucial in alleviating water scarcity in Libya's densely populated coastal regions. 

However, the project has faced significant challenges. By early 2011, when the Libyan uprising began, roughly 70 percent of the project was completed. During the subsequent civil war between Gaddafi’s forces and Western-backed rebels, a key water-pipe factory in Brega—responsible for manufacturing cylinders for the GMMR—was destroyed by a NATO airstrike. The airstrike, initially justified as targeting a "military storage" facility, severely disrupted the project's operations. At the time, Abdel-Hakim el-Shwehdy, a key leader of the project, described the destruction of the water-pipe factory as "a major setback" for the future of the GMMR. The ensuing civil war and subsequent instability have left many sections of the GMMR in disrepair, halting progress at the third of its four planned stages. 

By 2019, Abdullah El-Sunni, head of the Libyan water authority, reported to Reuters that 101 of the 479 wells in the western pipeline system had been dismantled. Newsweek has reached out to the GMMRA to assess the current status of the project. Malak Altaeb, a Paris-based researcher and former non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, discussed the GMMR with Newsweek. Altaeb noted that while the civil war interrupted significant portions of the project, the shift in Libya’s leadership in 2011 further impacted its development. "The Great Man-Made River was a mega project that relied heavily on the former regime for political support, financial backing, and security for its construction and operations," Altaeb explained. 

"The ongoing precarious security situation in Libya has deterred foreign companies from engaging in or supporting the project’s completion." Far from Muammar Gaddafi’s vision of transforming Libya’s desert into a landscape “as green as the flag of the Libyan Jamahiriya,” the Great Man-Made River (GMMR) has highlighted the vulnerability of the country’s water supply amid ongoing political turmoil. The Atlantic Council notes that "the lack of a comprehensive water policy or plan has placed Libya under significant water stress, potentially endangering its ability to provide water to its population." Malak Altaeb told Newsweek that water shortages have become a "new reality" for Libyans. She explained that the challenges facing the GMMR have underscored the urgent need for alternative water sources to address the country’s needs. 

"There is a growing realization that alternative water resources are crucial to meet increasing demand and ensure water security, as reliance solely on this project poses a high risk," Altaeb said. She also pointed out that groundwater from the Nubian aquifers is a non-renewable resource, further complicating the situation.