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For Libya, the find was as valuable as the discovery of oil. Although the country has a population of only 3.9 million, more than 90% of the people live along the Mediterranean, where increased demand for water for agriculture and industry is taxing local rain-fed wells. Many have become so saline that they are virtually useless for irrigation purposes. Even in Tripoli, Libya's capital, most of the water has an unpleasant salty taste.
The environmental cost of plumbing the desert water reserves may be considerable. Estimates of the amount of fossil water beneath the Sahara vary widely, as do calculations about the rate of replenishment through flash floods, which turn desert wadis into raging torrents. Says Hydrologist Smith: "It is a one-off use of the resource, and only a short-term solution to the problem." Indeed, some scientists say it is impossible to know for sure whether the desert water will flow for 200, 50 or just 20 years.
Libya plans to irrigate nearly half a million acres of land with the water. Although irrigation may initially produce bumper crops, some scientists say persistent intensive irrigation will release salts in the soil, leading to such a high level of salinity that agriculture in the area may be threatened. "Irrigation schemes around the world don't have a good track record," says Tony Debney of the Wallingford institute. In California, he notes, large tracts of land have become barren because of long-term irrigation.
There is also concern that tapping the deep aquifers will cause smaller pockets of water closer to the surface to disappear, along with scattered oases, on which Bedouin tribes depend for survival. "You may completely depopulate a large area of desert and end a way of life that has existed for millenniums," says Debney.
The fact that Gaddafi is willing to take the risk indicates how much Libya needs water. The Libyan government calls the scheme the Great Man-Made River Project, while Gaddafi's critics have dubbed it the Great Madman River. Just who is right is as difficult to predict at this stage as the colonel's next political move.