Gaddafi's grandiose water project. The grandiose project of Gaddafi

September 2010 is the date of the anniversary of the opening of the main section of the Great Man-Made River, recognized in 2008 by the Guinness Book of Records as the largest irrigation project in the world. However, for some reason, the media stubbornly does not write about it. Although in this case, the main thing in this project is not its gigantic scale, but the very purpose of this unique construction. If the project is successfully completed, this Great Man-Made River will turn desert Africa into a green continent like America or Australia. However, will this be a “happy ending”?

Water instead of oil?

When in 1953 Libya was looking for oil fields, it unexpectedly discovered huge reserves of drinking water in the south, which fed the desert oases. And only a few decades later, the Libyans realized what a treasure they had found: water, which turned out to be more expensive than black gold. The black continent, always experiencing a shortage of water and therefore having very poor vegetation, had giant water reservoirs under it - 35 thousand cubic meters of artesian water. There is so much water there that it is possible to completely flood a country like Germany, which has an area of ​​​​more than 350 thousand square kilometers. The reservoir descended to a hundred meters in depth. If the entire surface of Africa is flooded with this water, then this continent will become a green and flowering garden.

This is what Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi thought about. And no wonder, because almost all of Libya is a desert. And Gaddafi came up with the idea to develop a very complex system of pipelines that would pump water from the Nubian water reservoir to the most arid regions of the country. For this purpose, experts on such projects were invited from South Korea. And in the city of El Buraika, they even built a plant that began to produce reinforced concrete pipes with a diameter of four meters. Gaddafi himself opened the construction of the pipeline in August 1984.

The eighth miracle of Gaddafi

It is no coincidence that the man-made river is listed in the Guinness Book of Records. Many generally call it the largest engineering building on our planet. And the Libyan leader himself called it the eighth wonder of the world. Today, this water supply network consists of 1,300 wells, each of which is half a kilometer deep, about four thousand kilometers of underground pipes made of concrete, a network of pumping stations, reservoirs, system management and control centers. About seven million cubic meters of water flows through these four-meter concrete pipes of a man-made river per day, which supplies several cities at once, including the capital of Libya, then Benghazi, Gharyan, Sirte and others, and also irrigates fields planted right in the middle of the desert. The far-reaching plans of Libya included the irrigation of about 150 thousand hectares of cultivated areas, and then Libya intended to connect some other African countries to this system. And at the very end, the Libyans intended to turn their continent from eternally starving and begging into a mainland that could not only provide itself with barley, oats, wheat and corn, but also begin to export these agricultural products. The end of the project was to come in a quarter of a century. But alas...

Exile from Eden

Libya embarked on a revolutionary path. At the beginning of last year, an uprising broke out there, and Muammar Gaddafi died at the hands of the rebels in the fall of 2011. However, there are rumors that the Libyan leader was killed by the man-made river he created.

Of course, it would not be beneficial for certain major powers that were engaged in the supply of food to the Black Continent if Africa gained independence in this matter, overnight turning into a producer from a consumer. And secondly, already now, when the population of the planet has greatly increased, our globe has begun to consume even more fresh water, which has become a very valuable resource. Many European countries are experiencing a shortage of drinking water. And here in Africa, in some kind of Libya, a source of fresh water arose, which is able to provide everyone for several centuries.

Once, opening another section of the construction of the Great Man-Made River, Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi said: “Now that we have achieved this, the United States will increase its threats against us. America will do everything so that our great work is destroyed, so that the Libyan people will always remain oppressed. This solemn meeting was attended by many heads of state located on the continent of Africa, who supported this undertaking by Gaddafi. Among them was the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak.
At the beginning of the year, Mubarak also stepped down as President due to a sudden revolution that broke out in Egypt.

Are there many coincidences? And what is interesting: when NATO troops intervened in the Libyan conflict, the first thing they began to bomb in order to “achieve peace” was precisely the Great Man-Made River, its concrete pipe factory, its pumping stations and system control panels. So there is a very big doubt that the battle for oil is smoothly turning into a battle for ... water. And Gaddafi is the first casualty in this battle. And let's hope it's the last one.

No related links found

The grandiose project of Gaddafi - the great man-made river

The most grandiose project of Gaddafi is the Great Man-Made River. The media kept quiet about this project of Libya

Great man-made river The Great Manmade River, GMR) is a complex network of conduits that supplies the desert regions and the coast of Libya with water from the Nubian aquifer. By some estimates, this is the largest engineering project in existence. This huge system of pipes and aqueducts, which also includes over 1,300 wells over 500 meters deep, supplies the cities of Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirte and others with 6,500,000 cubic meters of drinking water per day. named this river "The Eighth Wonder of the World". In 2008, the Guinness Book of Records recognized the Great Man-Made River as the largest irrigation project in the world.

September 1, 2010 is the anniversary of the opening of the main section of the Great Libyan artificial river. This Libyan project was kept quiet by the media, and, by the way, this project surpasses the largest construction projects. Its cost is 25 billion.

Back in the 80s, Gaddafi began a large-scale project to create a network of water resources, which was supposed to cover Libya, Egypt, Sudan and Chad. To date, this project has been almost completed. The task was, I must say, historical for the entire North African region, because the problem of water has been relevant here since the time of Phoenicia. And, more importantly, a project that could turn all of North Africa into a flowering garden was not spent not a single cent from the IMF. It is with the latter fact that some associate the current destabilization of the situation in the region.

The desire for a global monopoly on water resources is already the most important factor in world politics. And in the south of Libya there are four giant water reservoirs (oases Kufra, Sirt, Morzuk and Hamada). According to some reports, they contain an average of 35,000 cubic meters. kilometers (!) of water. To imagine this volume, it is enough to imagine the entire territory as a huge lake 100 meters deep. Such water resources undoubtedly represent separate interest. And maybe he more than interest in Libyan oil.

This water project has been called the "Eighth Wonder of the World" for its scale. It provides a daily flow of 6.5 million cubic meters of water through the desert, greatly increasing the area of ​​irrigated land. 4,000 kilometers of pipes buried deep in the ground from the heat. Underground water is pumped through 270 shafts from hundreds of meters deep. A cubic meter of the purest water from Libyan reservoirs, taking into account all costs, can cost 35 cents. This is the approximate cost per cubic meter of cold water. If we take the cost of a European cubic meter (about 2 euro), then the value of the water reserves in the Libyan reservoirs is 58 billion euros.

The idea of ​​extracting water hidden deep under the surface of the Sahara desert appeared back in 1983. In Libya, like its Egyptian neighbor, only 4% territories, on the rest 96% sands reign supreme. Once upon a time, on the territory of modern Jamahiriya, there were riverbeds that flowed into. These channels dried up long ago, but scientists managed to establish that at a depth of 500 meters underground there are huge reserves - up to 12 thousand cubic meters km of fresh water. Its age exceeds 8.5 thousand years, and it makes up the lion's share of all sources in the country, leaving an insignificant 2.3% for surface and a little more than 1% for desalinated water.

Simple calculations showed that the creation of a hydraulic system that allows pumping water from Southern Europe will give 0.74 cubic meters. m of water for one Libyan dinar. Delivery of life-giving moisture by sea will bring benefits up to 1.05 cubic meters. m for one dinar. Desalination, which also requires powerful expensive installations, loses significantly, and only the development "Great man-made river" will allow you to get 9 cubic meters from each dinar. meters.

The project is still far from complete - the second phase is currently underway, which provides for the laying of the third and fourth stages of pipelines hundreds of kilometers inland and the installation of hundreds of deep-water wells. In total, there will be 1,149 such wells, including more than 400 still to be built. Over the past years, 1,926 km of pipes have been laid, and another 1,732 km are ahead. Each 7.5m steel pipe reaches 4 meters in diameter and weighs up to 83 tons, and in total there are more than 530.5 thousand such pipes. The total cost of the project is $25 billion. As the Minister of Agriculture of Libya, Abdel Majid al-Matruh, told reporters, the main share of the produced water - 70% - goes to the needs, 28% - to the population, the rest goes to the industry.

“According to the latest research by experts from Southern Europe and North Africa, water from underground sources enough for another 4860 years, although the average life of all equipment, including pipes, is estimated at 50 years,” he said. The man-made river now irrigates about 160,000 hectares of the country's territory, which is being actively developed for agriculture. And hundreds of kilometers to the south, on the paths of camel caravans, water trenches brought to the surface of the earth serve as a transit point and a resting place for people and animals.

Looking at the result of the work of human thought in Libya, it is hard to believe that Egypt, which is experiencing the same problems, is suffering from overpopulation and cannot share the resources of the Nile with its southern neighbors. Meanwhile, on the territory of the Land of the Pyramids are also hidden underground countless reserves of life-giving moisture, which for the desert inhabitants is more valuable than all treasures.

With its water project, Libya could start a real "green revolution". Literally, naturally, that would solve a lot of food problems in Africa. And most importantly, it would ensure stability and economic independence. Moreover, cases are already known when global corporations blocked water projects in the region. and the IMF, for example, blocked the construction of the canal on the White Nile Junglei Canal- in southern Sudan, everything was started there and everything was abandoned after the American intelligence services provoked the growth of separatism there. It is, of course, much more profitable for the IMF and global cartels to impose their own expensive projects, such as desalination. An independent Libyan project did not fit into their plans. Compare with neighboring Egypt, where for the last 20 years all irrigation and water improvement projects have been sabotaged behind them.

Gaddafi called on the Egyptian peasants, who number 55 million and all live in the overcrowded region along the banks of the Nile, to come and work in the fields of Libya now. 95% of Libya's land is desert. The new artificial river opens up huge opportunities for the development of this land. Libya's own water project was a slap in the face of the World Bank and the IMF and the entire West.

The construction of the Great Man-Made River in Libya was for some reason deprived of media attention, despite the fact that since 2008 this structure has been recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the largest irrigation project in the world. But what is important here is not the scale of the construction of the century, but the goals. After all, if the Libyan man-made river is completed, it will turn Africa from a desert into a fertile continent, the same as, for example, Eurasia or America. However, the whole snag is precisely in this very “if” ...

WATER INSTEAD OF OIL

In 1953, the Libyans, trying to find sources of oil in the south of their country, discovered water: giant underground reservoirs that feed oases. Only a couple of decades later, the inhabitants of Libya realized that a much greater treasure fell into their hands than black gold. From time immemorial, Africa has been a drought-stricken continent with sparse vegetation, and here, literally under your feet, there are about 35,000 cubic kilometers of artesian water.

The corresponding volume can, for example, completely flood the territory of Germany (357,021 square kilometers), and the depth of such a reservoir will be about 100 meters. If this water is released to the surface, it will turn Africa into a blooming garden!

It was this idea that visited the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. No wonder, because the territory of Libya is more than 95% desert. Under the patronage of Gaddafi, a project was developed for a complex network of pipelines that would deliver water from the Nubian aquifer to the arid regions of the country. To implement this grandiose plan, specialists in modern technologies arrived in Libya from South Korea. A plant for the production of reinforced concrete pipes with a diameter of four meters was launched in the city of El Buraika. On August 28, 1984, Muammar Gaddafi was personally present at the beginning of the construction of the pipeline.

THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD

The Great Man-Made River is not without reason called the largest irrigation project in the world. Some even consider it the largest engineering structure on the planet. Gaddafi himself called his creation the eighth wonder of the world. Now this network includes 1,300 wells 500 meters deep, four thousand kilometers of concrete pipes laid underground, a system of pumping stations, storage tanks, control and management centers.

Every day, six and a half million cubic meters of water flows through the pipes and aqueducts of the man-made river, supplying the cities of Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirte, Gharyan and others, as well as green fields in the middle of the former desert. In the future, the Libyans intended to irrigate 130-150 thousand hectares of cultivated land and, in addition to Libya, include other African countries in this system. Ultimately, Africa would not only cease to be a perpetually starving continent, but even itself would begin to export barley, oats, wheat and corn. The completion of the project was planned in 25 years, but…

EXILE FROM PARADISE

4,000 kilometers of underground pipes stretched across the desert

In early 2011, Libya was engulfed in civil war, and on October 20, Muammar Gaddafi died at the hands of the rebels. But there is an opinion that the real reason for the murder of the Libyan leader was precisely his Great Man-Made River.

First, a number of major powers were engaged in the supply of food to African countries. Of course, it is absolutely unprofitable for them to transform Africa from a consumer into a producer. Secondly, due to the growth of the population on the planet, fresh water is becoming an increasingly valuable resource every year. Many European states are already experiencing a shortage of drinking water. And here in the hands of Libya is a source, which, according to experts, will last for the next four to five millennia.

Once, at the solemn completion of one of the stages of the construction of the Great Man-Made River, Muammar Gaddafi said: “Now, after this achievement, the US threats against Libya will double. The Americans will do anything to ruin our labors and leave the people of Libya oppressed.” By the way, the heads of many African states were present at this celebration, and the leaders of the Black Continent supported Gaddafi's initiative. Among them was Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Mubarak was also removed from his post as a result of a sudden outbreak of revolution in Egypt.

Strange coincidence, isn't it? It is noteworthy that when NATO forces intervened in the Libyan conflict, in order to "protect civilians" their aircraft struck precisely on the branches of the Great River, pumping stations and destroyed a factory producing concrete pipes. So, I think it is highly likely that we can assume that the fight for oil is being replaced by a different one. war for water. And Gaddafi became the first victim of this war.

The Great Manmade River (GMR) is a complex network of conduits that supplies the desert regions and coast of Libya with water from the Nubian aquifer. By some estimates, this is the largest engineering project in existence. This huge system of pipes and aqueducts, which also includes more than 1,300 wells over 500 meters deep, supplies the cities of Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirte and others, supplying 6,500,000 m³ of drinking water per day. Muammar Gaddafi called this river the "Eighth Wonder of the World". In 2008, the Guinness Book of Records recognized the Great Man-Made River as the largest irrigation project in the world.

September 1, 2010 - the anniversary of the opening of the main section of the Great Libyan artificial river. This project of Libya was kept quiet by the world media, and by the way, this project surpasses the largest construction projects. Its cost is 25 billion US dollars.

Back in the 80s, Gaddafi began a large-scale project to create a network of water resources, which was supposed to cover Libya, Egypt, Sudan and Chad. To date, this project has been almost completed. The task was, I must say, historical for the entire North African region, because the problem of water has been relevant here since the time of Phoenicia. And, more importantly, not a single cent from the IMF was spent on a project that could turn all of North Africa into a flowering garden. It is with the latter fact that some analysts associate the current destabilization of the situation in the region.

The desire for a global monopoly on water resources is already the most important factor in world politics. And in the south of Libya there are four giant water reservoirs (the oases of Kufra, Sirt, Morzuk and Hamada). According to some reports, they contain an average of 35,000 cubic meters. kilometers (!) of water. To imagine this volume, it is enough to imagine the entire territory of Germany as a huge lake 100 meters deep. Such water resources are undoubtedly of particular interest. And perhaps it is more than an interest in Libyan oil.
This water project has been called the "Eighth Wonder of the World" due to its scale. It provides a daily flow of 6.5 million cubic meters of water through the desert, greatly increasing the area of ​​irrigated land. 4,000 kilometers of pipes buried deep in the ground from the heat. Underground water is pumped through 270 shafts from hundreds of meters deep. A cubic meter of the purest water from Libyan reservoirs, taking into account all costs, can cost 35 cents. This is the approximate cost of a cubic meter of cold water in Moscow. If we take the cost of a European cubic meter (about 2 euros), then the value of the water reserves in Libyan reservoirs is 58 billion euros.

The idea of ​​extracting water hidden deep under the surface of the Sahara desert appeared back in 1983. In Libya, like its Egyptian neighbor, only 4 percent of the territory is suitable for human life, the remaining 96 percent is dominated by sands. Once upon a time, on the territory of modern Jamahiriya, there were riverbeds that flowed into the Mediterranean Sea. These channels dried up long ago, but scientists managed to establish that at a depth of 500 meters underground there are huge reserves - up to 12 thousand cubic kilometers of fresh water. Its age exceeds 8.5 thousand years, and it makes up the lion's share of all sources in the country, leaving an insignificant 2.3% for surface water and a little more than 1% for desalinated water. Simple calculations showed that the creation of a hydraulic system that allows pumping water from southern Europe will give Libya 0.74 cubic meters of water for one Libyan dinar. Delivery of life-giving moisture by sea will benefit up to 1.05 cubic meters per dinar. Desalination, which also requires powerful expensive installations, loses significantly, and only the development of the "Great Man-Made River" will make it possible to obtain nine cubic meters from each dinar. The project is still far from complete - the second phase is currently underway, which provides for the laying of the third and fourth stages of pipelines hundreds of kilometers inland and the installation of hundreds of deep wells. A total of 1,149 such wells were planned, including more than 400 still to be built. Over the past years, 1,926 km of pipes have been laid, and another 1,732 km are ahead. Each 7.5-meter steel pipe reaches four meters in diameter and weighs up to 83 tons, and there are more than 530.5 thousand such pipes in total. The total cost of the project is $25 billion. As Libyan Minister of Agriculture Abdel Majid al-Matrouh told journalists, the bulk of the produced water - 70% - goes to the needs of agriculture, 28% - to the population, the rest goes to industry.

The Great Man-Made River, the Libyan Jamahiriya's most ambitious project, is a network of aquifers that supply waterless regions and the northern industrial part of Libya with the purest drinking water from underground reservoirs of oases located in the southern part of the country. According to independent experts, this is the world's largest engineering project currently in existence. The little-known project is due to the fact that the Western media practically did not cover it, and meanwhile the project overtook the world's largest construction activities in terms of its cost: the project cost $ 25 billion.

Gaddafi began work on the project back in the 80s, and by the time the current hostilities began, it was practically implemented. We note in particular: not a cent of foreign money was spent on the construction of the system. And this fact is definitely suggestive, because control over water resources is becoming an increasingly significant factor in world politics. Is the current war in Libya the first war over drinking water? After all, there really is something to fight for! The functioning of the man-made river is based on the intake of water from 4 huge water reservoirs located in the oases of Hamada, Kufra, Morzuk and Sirt and containing approximately 35,000 cubic meters. kilometers of artesian water! Such a volume of water could completely cover the territory of a country like Germany, while the depth of such a reservoir would be about 100 meters. And according to recent studies, the water from the Libyan artesian springs will last almost 5,000 years.

In addition, this water project can rightly be called the "Eighth Wonder of the World" in terms of its scale, as it provides transportation of 6.5 million cubic meters of water through the desert per day, which tremendously increases the area of ​​irrigated desert land. The project of a man-made river is completely incomparable with what was carried out by the Soviet leaders in Central Asia in order to irrigate its cotton fields and which led to the Aral catastrophe. The fundamental difference of the Libyan irrigation project is that for the irrigation of agricultural land, an almost inexhaustible underground, rather than surface water source is used, which is easily subjected to significant damage in a short period of time. Water is transported in a closed way using 4,000 kilometers of steel pipes buried deep in the ground. Water from artesian pools is pumped through 270 shafts from a depth of several hundred meters. One cubic meter of crystal clear water from Libyan underground reservoirs, taking into account all the costs of its extraction and transportation, cost the Libyan state only 35 cents, which is approximately comparable to the cost of a cubic meter of cold water in a large Russian city, for example, in Moscow. If we take into account the cost of a cubic meter of drinking water in European countries (about 2 euros), then the cost of artesian water reserves in Libyan underground reservoirs is, according to the most rough estimates, almost 60 billion euros. Agree that such a volume of a resource that continues to grow in price may be of much more serious interest than oil.

Before the war, the man-made river irrigated about 160,000 hectares, actively developed for agriculture. And to the south, on the territory of the Sahara, ditches brought to the surface serve as a place for watering animals. And most importantly, major cities of the country, in particular the capital Tripoli, were supplied with drinking water.

Here are the most important dates in the Libyan irrigation project "Great Man-Made River", in 2008 recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the largest in the world:
October 3, 1983 - The General People's Congress of the Libyan Jamahiriya was convened and an emergency session was held, at which the start of funding for the project was announced.
August 28, 1984 - The leader of Libya lays the foundation stone for the launch site of the project.
August 26, 1989 - The second phase of construction of the irrigation system begins.
September 11, 1989 - water entered the reservoir in Ajdabiya.
September 28, 1989 - water entered the Grand Omar Muktar reservoir.
September 4, 1991 - water enters the Al-Ghardabiya reservoir.
August 28, 1996 - the beginning of regular water supply to Tripoli.
September 28, 2007 - water appeared in Garyan.

Due to the fact that the neighboring countries of Libya, including Egypt, suffer from a lack of water resources, it is quite logical to assume that the Jamahiriya, with its water project, was quite capable of significantly expanding its influence in the region, starting a green revolution in neighboring countries, and figuratively , and in the literal sense of the word, since by irrigating the North African fields, most of the food problems in Africa would be solved very quickly, providing the countries of the region with economic independence. And corresponding attempts took place. Gaddafi actively encouraged the peasants of Egypt to come and work in the fields of Libya.

The Libyan water project has become a real slap in the face for the entire West, because both the World Bank and the US State Department are promoting only projects that are beneficial to them, like the seawater desalinization project in Saudi Arabia, which costs $4 per cubic meter of water. Obviously, the West benefits from a shortage of water - this supports its high price.

It is noteworthy that, speaking at the celebration of the anniversary of the beginning of the construction of the river, on September 1 last year, Gaddafi said: “Now that this achievement of the Libyan people has become obvious, the US threat against our country will double!” In addition, a few years ago, Gaddafi said that the Libyan irrigation project would be "the most serious response to America, which constantly accuses Libya of being sympathetic to terrorism and living on petrodollars." A very eloquent fact was the support of this project and the former President of Egypt Mubarak. And this is certainly not a mere coincidence.