CONCLUSIONS - Hydrogeology: Objectives, Methods, Applications - page 314

the Golan plateau, annexed in 1981, allowed Israel to protect the Jordan's
springs and to prevent the diversion of its waters into Syria.
c) The Great Man-Made River
Libya now draws on the Saharan fossil aquifer. The GMR project: Great
Man-Made River, with a total budget of around 30 billion euros, includes
hundreds of boreholes in catchment fi elds, extracting water from the aquifer
in order to direct it, through great subterranean aqueducts, towards Tripoli
and the coastal regions (Figure 144). At the end of construction, probably
not before 2015 due to the actual problems in Libya, the annual discharge
should be of 6.5 billion m 3 per day. The reserves are hoped to last for around
50 years. The impact on the surrounding countries, already handicapped by
drought, is unknown. What will the position of the neighboring countries
be once the fi rst effects are felt?
Libya
Figure 144 The Great Man-Made River in Libya and its relationship with the neighboring
countries.
Three basins are being exploited:
• to the west: The North Sahara Basin is touched upon by Libya, Tunisia,
and Algeria. A regional cooperation association was created: The
Sahel Observatory, in order to enable exploitation while respecting
the interests of the three countries. The annually extracted discharge
is estimated to be 600 million m 3 for Tunisia, 400 million m 3 for Libya,
and 1.5 billion m 3 for Algeria. The water is drawn from the interbedded
Continental aquifer (Albian sandstone);