|
The Great Man-Made River (GMR, ) is a network of pipes that supplies water to the Sahara Desert in Libya, from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System fossil aquifer. It is the world's largest irrigation project.〔(Guinness World Records 2008 Book ). ISBN 978-1-904994-18-3〕 According to its website, it is the largest underground network of pipes ()〔Keys, D., 2011, Libya Tale of Two Fundamentally Different Cities, BBC Knowledge Asia Edition, Vol.3 Issue 7〕 and aqueducts in the world. It consists of more than 1,300 wells, most more than 500 m deep, and supplies 6,500,000 m3 of fresh water per day to the cities of Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirte and elsewhere. The late Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi described it as the "Eighth Wonder of the World."〔(Water-Technology )〕 == History == In 1953, efforts to find oil in southern Libya led to the discovery of large quantities of fresh water underground. The Great Man-made River Project (GMRP) was conceived in the late 1960s and work on the project began in 1984. The project's construction was divided into five phases. The first phase required 85 million m³ of excavation and was inaugurated on 28 August 1991. The second phase (dubbed ''First water to Tripoli'') was inaugurated on 1 September 1996. The project is owned by the Great Man-Made River Project Authority and was funded by the Gaddafi government. The primary contractor for the first phases was Dong Ah Consortium and the present main contractor is Al Nahr Company Ltd. The imported goods were made in Korea and destined to the construction of the GMR arrived by sea via the entry port of Brega (Gulf of Sidra). The rest of goods were made in Libya. The total cost of the project is projected at more than US$25 billion. Libya has 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 is the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System. It accumulated during the last ice age and is not currently being replenished. If 2007 rates of retrieval are not increased, the water could last a thousand years.〔(Article from Saudi Aramco ) January/February 2007〕〔(UN Environment Program )〕 Independent estimates indicate that the aquifer could be depleted of water in as soon as 60 to 100 years.〔(Libya's Qaddafi taps 'fossil water' to irrigate desert farms - CSMonitor.com )〕 Analysts say that the costs of the $25 billion groundwater extraction system are 10% those of desalination.〔(Colonel Qaddafi and the Great Man-made River – Water Matters - State of the Planet )〕 On 22 July during the 2011 Libyan civil war, one of the two plants making pipes for the project, the Brega Plant, was hit by a NATO air strike. At a press conference on 26 July, NATO explained that rockets had been fired from within the plant area, and that military material, including multiple rocket launchers, was stored there according to intelligence findings, presenting a photo showing a BM-21 MRL as an example.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=NATO bombs the Great Man-Made River )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Great Man-Made River」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|