Talk of water scarcity in Libya is nothing more than a series of mere lies and unfounded statements. According to the report issued by the Man-Made River Project Authority, massive quantities of water are found in the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer in the Kufra and Sarir Basins. While it shares this water with Chad, Sudan and Egypt, Libya alone is entitled to enough groundwater to last around 4,800 years.
Egypt, Sudan, Libya and Chad have already signed a Strategic Action Program to manage the world’s largest reserve of groundwater (the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer). Located in the eastern Sahara, this two-million-square-meter aquifer holds an estimated 150,000 cubic kilometers of water.
With the exception of valleys and temporary dams, Libya has no surface water, which accounts for less than three percent of the water the country consumes. Thus, Libya relies heavily on groundwater, which accounts for more than 97 percent of the water it consumes. However, Libya shares its aquifers with many of its neighbors. This is true for the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer, which has a surface area of over 2.2 million square kilometers. 760,000 square kilometers are in Libya, 828,000 square kilometers are in Egypt, 376,000 square kilometers are in Sudan, and 235,000 square kilometers are in Chad.
Libya addressed its water crisis early on, developing the Man-Made River project. This Project allowed groundwater to be transported from the depths of the desert to the Libyan north through massive pipelines. All of them, from the desert to the north, are four meters wide and 4,000 kilometers long. According to the reports of the Man-Made River Project Authority, the countries sharing the aquifer need only 2.5 percent of its water for their consumption.
According to the statement of the Man-Made River Project Authority, it was built to pump 6.4 million cubic meters per day, 70 percent of which is used for agricultural purposes, 28 percent for urban consumption, and two percent for industrial consumption.
The Man-Made River Project is the most consequential project addressing the problem of water being scarce in some regions of Libya and abundant in other regions. It is not merely a pipeline transporting water from the south to the north as the detractors of Gaddafi, who built the Project, claim. While the river maps were available during the reign of the monarch, construction did not begin until he was deposed. The pretext at the time, the extremely high cost of the Project, was not an obstacle to Gaddafi.
It proved a genuine success. Indeed, the Project transports more water through natural flow than any other man-made river in the world, covering a network over 4,0000 kilometers long. Without this man-made river, many cities would have gone thirsty, including Tripoli, Benghazi, and the areas around them.
Scientific reports have indicated that Libya has a massive groundwater reservoir estimated to last the country thousands of years that the country shares with its neighbors in the Sahara Desert that is home to the Nubian Basin, which holds the world’s largest aquifer.
Regardless of the scale of consumption, this huge reserve of groundwater will not be depleted, and its water will not dry up. The main crisis in Libya is not water scarcity but the management of the water. Indeed, these reports have found that water has been flowing through this man-made river water for over 25 years without interruption or decreases in quantity. This fact affirms that there is plenty of water, particularly in the Kufra Basin, the Libyan oasis that intersects with the Nubian Basin. This massive reservoir of water means Libya will never be associated with water scarcity again.
