Great Manmade River
The Great Man-Made River (GMR, النهر الصناعي العظيم) is a network of pipes that supplies water to the Sahara in Libya, from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System fossil aquifer. It is the world's largest irrigation project.
According to its website, it is the largest underground network of pipes (2,820 kilometres (1,750 mi)) 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.". But in 2011 it was damaged by NATO, due to which Libya is still facing water shortages.
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). Cathodic corrosion protection on the pipeline was supplied by an Australian company, AMAC Corrosion Protection, based in Melbourne and delivered via Port of Benghazi. The rest of goods were made in Libya.
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Wikipedia