Great Manmade River, Underground water pipeline network in Sahara Desert, Libya.
The Great Manmade River is an underground pipeline network in the Sahara region connecting ancient aquifers to coastal cities in Libya. The system stretches across several thousand kilometers and uses more than a thousand deep wells that draw water from great depths.
Construction began in the eighties with the goal of bringing water from the south to the Mediterranean coast. The first phase opened in the early nineties and initially supplied the Benghazi region with fresh water.
The network supplies more than two thirds of Libya's population with drinking water, fundamentally changing daily life in cities and rural areas. People can now live and work in places where this would have been impossible before due to water scarcity.
The system lies entirely underground and is mostly invisible at the surface. In some places, pumping stations and pipelines mark the route of the underground waterway through the desert.
The pipes transport water from aquifers that formed during the last ice age and are thousands of years old. This water does not recharge through rainfall, meaning the system uses a limited resource.
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