Environmental impacts of Libyan man made river on the nearby region

Abstract EN

The Libyan Great Man Made River Project (GMMRP) has been constructed to transfer fossil ground water from the south to the north where good quality water is lacking, and the cost of desalinating sea water was high at that time.

It did not consider the technological change and improvement in sea water desalination processes and reduction of the cost.

More importantly, it did not take into account the possible negative environmental, social and geological impacts of such huge project.

The first consideration has been recently addressed by many scientific researchers and economic evaluators, the second could include water sustainability, reduction of surface water level, loss of vegetation and dry of oasis, increase land subsidence and seismic activities, increase water pollution, and the social aspects of immigrating people to coastal cities which could directly rise many environmental issues such as (air and water pollution, waste disposal, and destruction of cropped land).

Even though there is a rising concern in the literature about these impacts, there is no any single article that addresses in full details these environmental effects.

This paper was intended to address the overseen environmental and geological impacts as it related to the project, based on the information gained from real world practices.

Without an in-depth understanding of the social, economic, geological and environmental consequences of such large-scale projects it is difficult to make integrated, holistic, adaptive, and sustainable water resources management programs.