A Few Words on the ‘Great Man-made River’
The Libyan war, which started two months ago, is still riveting world’s attention; till now Internet space is excited about nuances and process of this war. Speaking candidly, about month ago I also couldn’t hold myself from making an attempt to figure out possible consequences of this war event; today, I think, it’s time to write something about the Kaddafi regime which is already Libyan past.
Lyrical digression or thoughts about Libya: Unfortunately, we all became dependant on Mass Media and Libya’s war is not exclusion: the long confrontation between this country and western world made specific image of this country in the world. However, we should give the due to Gaddafi regime: “It is one of the few countries where the natural resources were used directly for increasing people's living standard without encumbering the country with debts or loans - in spite of the indisputable political
negatives Libya has the highest Human Development Index (HDI=0.755 as of 2010, 53rd place in the world, evaluated by the United Nations based on life expectancy, education and gross domestic product per capita) among all African countries, even higher than some countries within EU and NATO (Bulgaria: 0.743, Turkey: 0.679 as of 2010). That's something undoubtedly worth paying an attention, regardless of all the objections which the western society may have to the specific form of socialism ruling in this Mediterranean country.” But, unfortunately, all this numbers are ignored during the description of Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. I think, it’s time to see some really interesting and important steps that Libya made before the revolution of 2011, and in this post I will tell a few words about The Great Man-made River– the eighth world’s wonder as "another miracle in the desert.". Also it “has been described as the "eighth wonder of the world". It carries more than five million cubic metres of water per day across the desert to coastal areas, vastly increasing the amount of arable land. The total cost of the huge project is expected to exceed $25 billion (US).”. The main idea of this post is to point out some economical aspects of the Great Man-made River project; but before this I think it would be better to write some information on history of this project.
History of Saharan water reservoirs
So, speaking in short, Sahara Desert wasn’t area which has only sand with out drop of water. “Remnants of an ancient lake existing there between 750 thousand and 420 thousand years ago were found in south-western part of Libya (Fezzan). Scientists named it Megafezzan - with a surface area of 130 thousand km2 (50,193 sq mi) it is definitely worth of bearing its name (compare with the largest of the Great Lakes - Lake Superior, with the surface of 82,000 km2 [31,700 sq mi]). Local sediments are an extraordinary source of information about the climate changes in Sahara during the last 750 thousand years”. “It is also noteworthy that this water originated mostly from the last ice age (therefore, the term "fossil"), and has accumulated in the reservoirs approximately 1 million - 10 000 years ago, when the climate was generally wet, rich in rainfall, and sufficient for maintaining a complex river system.” “Geological activity caused the up thrust of mountainous formations (Jabal Nefussa and Jabal Al Akhdar) and the associated downward movement formed natural underground basins. Between 38,000 and 10,000 years ago the climate of North Africa was temperate, during which time there was considerable rainfall in Libya. The excess rainfall infiltrated into porous sandstone and was trapped between layers, forming reservoirs of underground fresh-water.
In Libya there are four major underground basins, these being the Kufra basin, the Sirt basin, the Morzuk basin and the Hamada basin, the first three of which contain combined reserves of 35,000 cubic kilometers of water. These vast reserves offer almost unlimited amounts of water for the Libyan people.”
During the oil-searches in 1960s the water was discovered and about 30 years later The Great Man-Made River Project (GMMR) would be started.
History of the project
Speaking about history of the GMMR Project development can be point out 5 main phases:
§ First phase of the work began in 1984 in the most rough and arid south-eastern region of Libya, water having been transported from the well fields containing 234 drills through 1,600 km (994 mi) long pipeline into two coastal areas. Two reservoirs have storage capacity of 20 million m3 (706 million cu ft) of water. Transport capacity reaches 2 million m3 (70.6 million cu ft) per day. Power consumption: 65 MW. First water reached its destination in 1990. § Second phase brought the water finally to the Tripoli capital - 1,227 km (762 mi) long pipeline in the western part of the country is capable of transporting 2.5 million m3 (88 million cu ft) of water per day and provides inhabitants with water containing more than twenty times less salt than the previous sources.
§ Third phase extended the first phase pipeline by another 383 kilometers (238 mi) deeper into the desert, where a new well field containing another 300 drills was constructed. Seven new pumping stations transport additional 1.68 million m3 (59.3 million cu ft) of water per day, whilst the whole journey to the final reservoirs takes approximately 9 days.
§ Fourth phase is of a relatively smaller scale, and will transport quarter of million m3 (8.8 million cu ft) of water per day, using 621 kilometers (386 mi) of pipelines (plus 181 km [112 mi] of pipes within the well field itself), four pumping stations and three reservoirs.
§ Fifth phase will be the final one connecting the western and eastern transporting systems. With the pipeline being 190 kilometers (118 mi) long, transporting capacity of 0.98 million m3 (34.6 million cu ft) per day, two pumping stations, power consumption 43.6 MW, and one reservoir, it will be a smaller although important sibling of the preceding phases. Amazing work, wouldn’t you say?!
Problems & Critics of the project
Among welfare fossil water brings some troubles, such as:
Radioactive Worries: the example, The Disi's (Jordan's water reserve) fossil water was recently found to contain 20 times the radiation levels considered safe for drinking. The water is contaminated naturally by sandstone, which has slowly leached radioactive contaminants over the eons. Same worries is about Libyan underground water, however, there is possibility to clean this water through a simple water-softening process, though it does cost money and creates radioactive waste that must be disposed of properly, he noted.
Ecologists have objections to draining the nonrenewable water resources (counterargument of the Libyan government is both the volume of the reserves - with the current rate the aquifers in Libya itself will sustain for more than one thousand years - as well as uselessness of leaving the water in aquifers, having negligible value if left untouched). Politicians point out the possible future conflicts among the neighbouring countries due to the reciprocal draining of the aquifers which naturally do not obey the political borders (counterargument of Libya is its panafrican approach and suggested cooperation with the neighbouring countries, which do not use the aquifers yet).
International economists in turn criticize growing crops with water obtained in this way would be more expensive than import of foods from abroad - counterargument is the fact that 30% of water is being used for direct household usage, as well as state-of-the-art methods of economical and effective irrigation and, last but not least, the unique advantage of the food self-sufficiency and stable price of the crops obtained by irrigation employing the man-made river. So we can see that this project is criticized, but the main point, I think, is that is works and helps people survive in Sahara desert.
Economic and global aspects
Main point of this post is to show what this project was developed for. Here are some words about main goals of the GMMR:
“The Great Man-Made River Project is bringing water to the people and providing water for municipal, industrial and agricultural use. The strategy of the responsible Libyan authority is aimed at increasing both crop and livestock production to a level that achieves the highest possible rate of self-sufficiency and reduces dependence on imports from foreign markets to the lowest possible level. It also aims at increasing the productive capabilities of the labor force and of the capital investments in the sector, and at producing raw materials for food processing industries”. So, the main goal was independency from water and agricultural import. From my very subjective point of view, economic and global aspects of GMMR project can be divided into two parts:
The aspect number one: As was told already the project cost is $25 billion, and all money was taken only from Libyan funds – rare case in modern globalized world. The world investment practice became very popular and it works in liberal countries, but this practice doesn’t work if we are speaking about authoritarian-socialist state as was Libya during Gaddafi regime. As investment implies partnership in a possession, but Libyan government couldn’t make such step towards west.
Kaddafi regime in Libya is very interesting case: small country with a big independent income from oil industry, socialist policy and etc. And concerning Libya this project could be considered as an uncommon anti-globalization step. Globalization is a modern phenomenon of economic, cultural and other integrations, but Libya’s example is rather ‘worth exclusion’: it can show to others that countries with close economy can develop something without international help.
And we can see the reaction of this in western countries. The GMMR is world well-known project, but, unfortunately, we can’t find much objective information about it in western mass media, as the project shows possibilities of anti-globalization movements. In one Libyan article we can find such words: “The West refuses to recognize that a small country, with a population no more than four million, can construct anything so large without borrowing a single cent from the international banks.” The aspect number two: economical possibilities that can provide the GMMR are a big blow to a water business. “The cost of one cubic meter of water [received from the GMMR] equals 35 cents. The cubic meter of desalinized water is $3.75. Scientists estimate the amount of water to be equivalent to the flow of 200 years of water in the Nile River.” And next:
“Amount of water in cubic meters which could be provided for one Libyan dinar, based on scientific research. Studies proved the man-made river being the most economic approach, which provides more than ten times of water for one dinar compared to various alternative technologies (e.g., undersea pipeline from Southern Europe, transport by water tankers, sea water desalination etc).”As you can see on a picture with ‘drops’ for one Libyan dinar people can buy 9m3 of water. The independency from import of the water could provide state independency form other word.
I'm interesting what prices will be if somebody privatize this project....
Afterword
From my point of view this project is one of the best things Gadaffi made form Libya, and we should give him recognition for this contribution in Libyan economic and social life’s change…
“Initially, authorities intended to drill the wells directly in the aquifer areas and thought of creating whole new cities and irrigated agricultural areas there. However, due to the necessity of transferring high numbers of inhabitants and building infrastructure in a poorly accessible terrain this possibility was soon abandoned as being economically unfeasible. Therefore, in concordance with a bit reformulated old Arab saying "If Muhammad will not come to the mountain, then the mountain must go to Muhammad", the project of the man-made river of hitherto unprecedented dimensions was decided to be realized in 1983 in order to bring the fresh water from inside the deep desert to the people at the coast. Nevertheless, it was inevitable to overcome several obstacles - considerable distance between the aquifers and the coast, rough desert conditions, elevation differences in the terrain, corrosion of the reinforced concrete, and many more”.
And in the end I want to propose you some image I made few days ago via Google Earth:
1) the year of 1972 and 2004:
drills
