What is the Great Manmade River?

The Great Manmade River (better known as GMR) is a network of pipes that supplies water from the Sahara desert to Libya from a fossil aquifer. This aquifer is known as Nublon Sandstone Aquifer System. GMR is considered to be the largest underground network of pipes in the world. It has more than 1,300 wells supplying more than 7,100,000 cubic metres of freshwater per day to the Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirt and other African cities. Some wells are as deep as 650 metres. In 1953, when drilling for the search of oil, explorers found huge quantities of freshwater. GMRP (Great Manmade River Project) projecttook shape in 1984.