Great Manmade River
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The Great Manmade River or Great Man-made River (GMR) is a network of pipes that supplies water to the Sahara Desert in Libya from a fossil aquifer in the Sahara. Some sources cite it as the largest engineering project ever undertaken.
According to its website, it is the largest underground network of pipes in the world. According to the website, it consists of more than 1300 wells, most more than 500 m deep. Muammar al-Qaddafi has described it as the "eighth wonder of the world".
In 1953, efforts to find oil in southern Libya led to the discovery of huge quantities of fresh water underground. The GMRP was conceived in the late 1960s and work on the project began in 1984. The project's construction was divided into five logically separate phases. The first phase required 85 million m³ of excavation and was inaugurated on August 28, 1991. The second phase was inaugurated on September 1, 1996.
The project is owned by the Great Man-made River Authority and funded by the Libyan government. Brown & Root and Price Brothers were responsible for the original design, and the primary contractor for the first phases was Dong Ah.
The total cost of the project is projected at more than 25 billion US dollars. Libya claims to have completed the work to date without the financial support of major countries or loans from world banks. Since 1990, UNESCO has provided training to engineers and technicians involved with the project.
The fossil aquifer from which this water is being supplied accumulated during the last ice age and is not currently being replenished.
A large lawsuit arose from the project (and recently settled), between the Libyan government and Brasoil, the Brazilian national oil compnay, who was contracted to drill many of the wells. Many (hundreds) of the wells in the project collapsed or failed prematurely for unexplained reasons.
See also
External link
- Great Manmade River Project Info (http://www.water-technology.net/projects/gmr/)
- The Man Made River, Libya (http://www.galenfrysinger.com/man_made_river_libya.htm)