Page 298 - Hydrogeology Principles and Practice

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Groundwater resources and environmental management 281

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Continued
8.1

Fig. 1 Major aquifer basins of Libya and location of well-fields and conveyance systems of the Great Man-made River Project. After
McKenzie and Elsaleh (1994) and Pim and Binsariti (1994).

(Fig. 1). Natural groundwater flows in the thick and complex sequence The fully developed GMRP is expected to achieve a total ground-
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of layered and interconnected Palaeozoic and Mesozoic limestones water abstraction of 6.18 × 10 m day −1 and support approx-
and sandstones are generally from south to north, indicating that imately 200,000 ha of irrigated agricultural development with a
the southern mountains were a major recharge area during the last minimum design life of 50 years. The total abstraction in 50 years is
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pluvial period. As in the eastern region, the source of present calculated to be 113 km or 0.3% of the total groundwater resource.
throughflow is considered to be the slowly depleting groundwater The estimated total cost of the GMRP is large at US$20 billion
mound below the area of ancient recharge (Pim & Binsariti 1994). with an implementation period from the mid-1980s to 2005.