Libya, like its neighbor Egypt, is entering a substantially different era in the wake of the Arab Spring and the death of Muammar Gaddafi. One of the most ambitious projects of the former dictator was the Great Man-Made River Project (GMMR), which has supplied the country with potable water for decades. In order to understand the future of clean accessible water in Libya, I'll briefly examine what many Libyans refer to as the "Eighth wonder of the world," and I'll explore how it fits into a budding Libyan democracy.
The GMMR broke ground in 1984 and since its opening in 1991 has been the primary source of potable water to more than 100,000 hectares of agricultural land and more than 5 million Libyans. This modern wonder taps into the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer in southeast Libya via thousands of kilometers of pipeline, transporting clean water across a country roughly the size of Alaska.
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| -Courtesy of BBC News |
The GMMR broke ground in 1984 and since its opening in 1991 has been the primary source of potable water to more than 100,000 hectares of agricultural land and more than 5 million Libyans. This modern wonder taps into the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer in southeast Libya via thousands of kilometers of pipeline, transporting clean water across a country roughly the size of Alaska.
The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, the GMMR's water source, is a monster of an aquifer. It is the largest fossil aquifer in the world and is estimated to contain 375 000 cu km of freshwater.
It is important to stress that the NSA is a "fossil" aquifer. In other words, it consists of water that was sealed underground tens of thousands of years ago. Unlike the Denver Basin Aquifer, which lies beneath us here on the front range, the NSA will not recharge though percolating precipitation and surface water. It is by definition a finite resource and will not come back once it has been exhausted.
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| -Courtesy of Abdou Abouelmagd |
The eventual depletion of the NSA is only one of the ways in which complete dependence on the GMMR might harm future Libyans. The other danger to putting all your water eggs in one basket is that the GMMR is a sizeable and predictable target in an unstable political context. Only months into last year's civil war, multiple parties claimed it would be a catastrophe if this precious infrastructure were harmed.
And sadly, these concerns are not unjustified. On July 22, 2011, NATO jets bombed a pipe supplier of the GMMR. NATO officials later claimed that they struck the site because it was being used for military purposes. In addition, a Peter Gleick and the Pacific Institute have clearly demonstrated that it is not beyond imagination that water infrastructure and terrorism go hand in hand.
The Libyan government has a few options. One idea that has been thrown around is the construction of desalinization plants on the Mediterannean coast. While this may not be immune to terrorism, it diversifies the country's water supply and aside from its oil-dependent funding, is renewable in theory. The problem however is just that. To be a viable solution, desalinization will have to be paid for and run on non-renewable petroleum.
So for the time being, it's fossil water or fossil fuel, and neither are sustainable. The continued use of the GMMR as the primary source of water will likely prove difficult, given Libya's currently fragile state. Considering the potential for solar energy production and it's coupling with desalinization, my hope is that such alternative energy policies will help dig Libya out of difficult situation.
So for the time being, it's fossil water or fossil fuel, and neither are sustainable. The continued use of the GMMR as the primary source of water will likely prove difficult, given Libya's currently fragile state. Considering the potential for solar energy production and it's coupling with desalinization, my hope is that such alternative energy policies will help dig Libya out of difficult situation.
