Nearing completion is a project that could prove the most remarkable and enduring legacy of the Gaddafi era

AUNCHED more than 20 years ago, the Great Man-Made River (GMMR) Project is a hugely ambitious scheme to transport water from deep beneath Libya’s empty wasteland to the fertile, populated areas along the northern coast.

With 95 percent of Libya comprised of desert, water is in short supply for everything from drinking to irrigation. Incredibly, the solution to the problem lies buried beneath the dunes. Trapped in huge underground basins thousands of years old are enormous water reserves, discovered during the search for new oil fields in the 1950s.

The prospect of a reliable, plentiful supply of fresh water makes it possible for Libya to vastly increase the amount of arable land, extend agricultural production, and boost national self-sufficiency in food.

Accessing the water and conveying it to where it is most needed is an enormous challenge that has resulted in one of the world’s largest engineering schemes. Billions of dollars are being spent on a conveyance system of production wells, pumps, and underground pipelines to convey the water across hundreds of miles to specially built reservoirs.

The logistics of the project have been on a daunting scale. Just one example would be the fleet of more than 100 tankers required to haul thousands of tons of cement daily from the Libyan Cement Company to the Al Nahr Company pipe manufacturing plants at Brega and Sarir.

ABDUL MAJID M. ELAGOUD Secretary for the Great Man-Made River Project INTERVIEW

Launched by Col. Gaddafi in 1983, the GMMR project is being completed in five phases, which will eventually link up to create one huge integrated network. With some justification, the Libyan leader has dubbed the scheme “the eighth wonder of the world.”

The cost of the project so far is $14 billion. Water is already being supplied to the cities of Benghazi, Sirte, and Tripoli, and to the Jeffara plain in the western coastal belt.

“The availability of water affects the development of almost all sectors of our economy,” says Abdul Elgaoud, Secretary for the GMMR. “We were in serious danger of further desertification of our land, but in agriculture, things have improved massively.”

While management of the project is entirely in Libyan hands, technical partnerships with international companies, including American firms, have made a major contribution.

According to Mr. Elgaoud, the project is nearing the final stage of implementation, but there are still opportunities for U.S. investors in utilization of water for agriculture, manufacture of the impermeable membranes around reservoirs, and continuing pipe production at the Al Nahr plants.

“We need to keep one or two of our own lines of production for the future, but we have others that we would like to convert to fiber glass pipe manufacturing plants.

“It’s a very good technology that can be used for sewers and irrigation schemes and it’s very easy to export them to neighboring regions like the Gulf.”

Finished pipes strung out in storage areas awaiting transport to the spreads along the pipeline route	After dynamiting, the bulldozers excavate tons of rocks and sand as it digs the conveyance line's trench
Each section of finished pipe, weighing between 7à and 86 tonnes, is delivered to the pipeline route where a 450-tonne pipe-installation crane lowers it into the trench	Vertical wrapping machines. The pipes are wrapped with high tensil carbon-steel pre-stressing wire
A tip-out machine is used to transfer the pipe from a vertical to a horizontal position for further handling	A 250-ton crawler crane equipped with a lifting beam removes the cargo from the pipe-transporters at the installation spread
Special coated pipes are laid in aggressive areas to resist attack by soluble salts in the soil, thereby prolonging the life of the pipeline	After wire-wrapping the pipe, the protective layer of mortar coating is applied on a rotating platform
A convoy of pipe transporters on its way to the conveyance-line route	Each section of pipe is fitted with a rubber seal to form a watertight joint when installed
14000 year old water extracted from the heart of the Libyan desert	After placement a close inspection of the pipe joints is made by the engineers
Placement of the pipe in the trench and jointing to its neighbour	Excavation for reservoir
7 meter deep conveyance line trench	Man Made lake
Man made lake	Water form the desert