TRIPOLI
- Libya suffers from one of the worst water crises in the world, and it is expected to worsen in the near future, as years of drought and war left millions of Libyans with a crisis in securing their drinking water needs.
The problem of water scarcity is due to the equation of increasing demand and declining rainfall in recent years.
Libya relies almost entirely on groundwater, which represents 97% of the total water used for agricultural, industrial and domestic purposes.
The dilemma is not new
Al-Jazeera Net toured the outskirts of the mountainous city of Gharyan, and met Muhammad al-Nabot, 34, who was digging a well in the vicinity of his house.
Al-Nabot says that he suffers a lot to provide water for the needs of his house, forcing him to spend hundreds of dinars to buy water through tanks, the price of which is more than 120 dinars ($25) per unit, which covers the house’s need for only 20 days, a suffering that residents have gotten used to for years. .
In order to avoid this continuous suffering due to the region not being included in the strategy of the artificial river system, and the scarcity of rain that caused a decrease in the water level of the wells, the citizens of the Western Mountain region resort to digging wells to reach the aquifers, despite the difficulty of drilling in this mountainous region.
The residents of the mountain cities have appealed to the successive Libyan governments to work to provide them with water, but to no avail so far, prompting the residents of the region to dig wells in their homes regardless of the environmental and economic regulations set by the state.
The Great Man-made River Project in Libya (Al-Jazeera)
Thirst threats
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) expressed its concern about the deteriorating water, sanitation and hygiene situation in Libya, stressing that more than 4 million people, including 1.5 million children, will face imminent water problems if immediate solutions are not found and implemented.
The head of the Communications Department at UNICEF in Libya, Suad Al-Marani, says that the organization's estimates in its latest report came based on the status of the Great Man-made River and water desalination project due to the repeated attacks on the Man-made River systems, which caused about 190 wells to go out of service.
Al-Marani continues her speech to Al-Jazeera Net, that "despite the improvement of the situation, the problem remains the same. It is possible that 4 million people will face a shortage of water if the Man-Made River project is attacked or affected again."
She points out that UNICEF's new country program in Libya 2023-2025 aims to increase the capacity of water and sanitation systems for water and hygiene services.
Al-Marani concluded, "Special attention will be given to long-term solutions, such as water desalination and solar energy in the country."
The Great River Project in Libya (Al-Jazeera)
Eighth marvel
The Man-Made River is a huge project that laid its foundation stone in 1984, to transport groundwater to agricultural areas and densely populated cities. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi considered his great river the eighth wonder in the world after the Seven Wonders of the World.
About 80% of Libya's 7 million people live along the country's coast, and depend on fresh water piped from underground reservoirs in the south of the country, where Libya's rich oil fields are also located.
The idea of the project is based on pumping groundwater from the middle of the desert through 4 giant pipes, to carry the equivalent of twice the flow of the Thames River that passes through London, from the south to the Libyan north.
In the same context, Salah Al-Saadi, spokesman for the Man-made River Authority, says, "The project has achieved great success by supplying a large number of Libyan cities with water delivered by the Man-made River pipes to those cities."
And Al-Saadi continues, speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, that the Man-made River Project was subjected to a number of attacks from groups outside the law, or from the people with the aim of making illegal connections, which caused the water to be cut off from a number of cities and neighborhoods, and these are the most problems that we were suffering from due to the instability in Some areas.
"We continue to work despite the difficulties we face, such as dealing with three governments at the same time, but today we got out of the bottleneck so that we can provide water for all Libyans," he added.
Sound the alarm
The Director of the Scientific Affairs Department at the Libyan Center for Remote Sensing, Muhammad Abdullah, says that it has become necessary to sound the alarm bells regarding the drought file and its dangers to life in general in Libya.
And Abdullah adds to Al-Jazeera Net that due to climate changes, the amount of rain falling has decreased in most of the northern regions of Libya, where the rain rate was 400 millimeters per year, and now it does not even reach 200 millimeters, and the evaporation rate increased as a result of the high temperature, which caused Significantly increased humidity, soil dryness, and increased desertification rate.
The desert climate prevails about 90% of Libya, and the rate of rainfall is less than 100 mm per year, while in the Green Mountain the rate of rainfall does not exceed 900 mm, and in the coastal strip the rate of rain does not exceed 400 mm per year. Regions - according to the evaluation of rainfall rates by United Nations organizations - scarce or poor regions.
Libya is the sixth country suffering from water scarcity in the world, with a water stress level of 817% in 2020, and 50% of households relied on bottled water.
90% of Libyan water is derived from non-renewable sources, and there is a risk that the primary water source in Libya will decline more quickly than expected, with groundwater depletion in the near future as it is extracted from limited fossil sources.
The amount of renewable water in Libya is only 103 cubic meters per person per year, compared to the international standard of 1,000 cubic meters per person per year as a minimum.