A significant man-made river, considered the largest irrigation project globally, is set to grow further with a new £5.1 billion development phase. The Great Man-Made River (GMMR) is a remarkable engineering achievement in the African desert, aiming to transfer ancient waters to a dry North African country facing water scarcity due to its challenging climate.
Covering the entire expanse of Libya, the Great Man-Made River Project seeks to access “fossil water” from a vast underground reservoir known as the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS), believed to have originated from the previous ice age.
Situated beneath the Sahara Desert and spanning regions of Libya, Egypt, Chad, and Sudan, the NSAS is one of the oldest and largest aquifers on Earth, holding immense freshwater resources.
Discovered by Libya during oil exploration in 1953, plans for the GMMR emerged about a decade later in the late 1960s, as reported by Spanish publication Diario AS.
Funded by the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who hailed it as the “eighth wonder of the world,” the GMMR reportedly had a budget of $25 billion (£18.5 billion).
This substantial budget reflects the vast amount of materials required for the project, with enough resources available to build “20 Great Pyramids of Giza.”
The Great Man-Made River Authority (GMMRA) estimates using approximately five million tonnes of cement and steel wires long enough to encircle the earth 280 times.
Divided into five major phases, the first phase was completed on August 28, 1991, with functional pipelines spanning 1,750 miles. Currently, 2,485 miles are at various stages, with a daily water capacity of about 1.7 billion gallons.
By December 2025, the fifth phase is nearing completion, marking three decades since its inception.
The fifth phase, close to wrap-up and costing $7 billion, aims to extend coverage to rural and northern areas that are currently not connected, according to Laura Martin Sanjuan of Diario AS.
Challenges faced include the 2011 civil war, leading to funding reductions, power supply issues, infrastructure damage, and difficulties in importing spare parts.
Designed to supply water to densely populated coastal regions of Libya, the GMMR provides an alternative to the overused coastal aquifers and costly desalination processes, as mentioned by Newsweek’s Hugh Cameron.
The GMMRA considers the project crucial and strategic, offering a potential solution to Libya’s water shortage issues for drinking, irrigation, and industrial purposes.
Concerns about economic sustainability arise due to a gap between production costs and consumer pricing, with worries about the non-renewable nature of the resource and projections indicating possible depletion within this century.