Water in Libya

Libya drinks the Sahara. The Great Man-Made River carries fossil water through pipes up to four metres wide, from desert well fields to the coastal cities where nearly everyone lives.¹⁵ War and neglect have degraded the system through power cuts, looted equipment and unpaid maintenance. The 2023 Derna dam disaster showed the cost of institutional collapse.

Derna is the region's starkest warning about neglected infrastructure. When Storm Daniel hit in September 2023, two 1970s dams above the city failed within hours of each other. OCHA confirmed 4,352 deaths and more than 8,000 missing by late November.¹⁷ Hydraulic reconstruction shows the dam failures made the damage nearly 20 times worse than a flood without the dams.³⁴ Neither dam had been maintained, despite funds allocated in 2012 and 2013.²⁷

A quick-reference dashboard for Libya: headline economy and water indicators³⁷³⁸, water stress against the scarcity thresholds, non-conventional supply, and the institutions behind the sector. The commercial picture, with buyers, deal structures and the project pipeline, is in the market brief.

One interactive map of Libya's water, built from real geodata. Climate & drought maps the aridity gradient (WorldClim) with warming projections. The WRI Aqueduct layers, covering overall water risk, water stress and flood risk (plus groundwater decline where the trend is significant), shade every river sub-basin by its 0–5 risk score. Demand shows where the population, and the water demand, concentrate. Infrastructure brings the physical system together: rivers, dams (FAO AQUASTAT), treatment plants, desalination and the major conveyors. Hover any sub-basin or marker for detail; sources are cited under each view.

Libya is almost all desert. About 95% of the country is desert, and there are no permanent rivers, only ephemeral wadis.¹¹ Coastal plains give way to the northern mountains: the Jabal Nafusah in the west and the Jabal al Akhdar in the east.¹¹ The Jabal al Akhdar platform runs about 300 km along the coast and rises to 880 m.¹⁶ The main natural lakes lie in the Ubari Sand Sea in the south.¹¹

Rainfall

About 93% of the land receives less than 100 mm of rain a year, and the national average is 56 mm.¹¹ Only the Tripoli region, with the Jabal Nafusah and Jifarah plain, and the Jabal al Akhdar around Benghazi get enough rain for rain-fed farming.¹¹ Rain falls from October to March and varies widely between places and years.¹¹ The highlands have a steppe climate, with snow on the hills in winter.¹¹ The Derna catchment shows the swings. Its long-term mean is 278 mm, ranging from 448 mm in 2018 to 130 mm in 1955.¹⁶ December averages 67 mm, and June to August less than 1 mm.¹⁶

Heat, drought and storms

Temperatures range from over 40 °C in summer to below zero in winter.¹¹ North Africa has warmed at twice the global rate, by 0.2–0.4 °C a decade and most in summer.¹ Heatwaves have grown in strength and extent since 1980.¹ Rainfall fell across most of North Africa in 1971–2000. In the east, days with more than 10 mm of rain have become rarer since the 1960s.¹ Extremes cut both ways. On 10–11 September 2023, Storm Daniel dropped 414.1 mm on Al-Bayda in 24 hours, a national record.³ Against Derna’s September mean of 1.46 mm, such rain has a return period of 500 to 10,000 years.¹⁶ In 2025–26 a dry October and November delayed planting, and rainfall in the Jabal al Akhdar stayed well below average.⁴

Projections

Projections for Libya come from regional assessments. At 2 °C of global warming, North Africa would be about 1.5 °C warmer than in 1994–2005, and about 2.6 °C at 3 °C.¹ Hot days could rise by up to 90% by 2100 under high emissions.¹ Rainfall is projected to fall at 2 °C of warming and above. Beyond 3 °C, droughts in parts of North Africa could double in length, from about two months to four.¹ The IPCC names Libya among the countries most exposed to sea-level rise.² One metre of sea-level rise would affect about 5.4% of urban areas, the World Bank estimates.¹⁸

Rainfall and temperature in numbers

Averaged over the whole of Libya, ERA5 reanalysis gives about 23 mm of rain a year and a mean temperature of 22.4 °C for 1991–2020. About 47% of that rain falls in December, January and February, and no month averages as much as 5 mm. Since 1971 the country has warmed by about 0.36 °C a decade. At such low totals, percentage changes in rainfall between decades mean little in absolute terms.

Projected change

Source: World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal, retrieved September 2026. ERA5 0.25° reanalysis for the annual series (1950–2022) and the monthly climatology (1991–2020); CMIP6 0.25° multi-model ensemble median for the projections, as change against 1995–2014. These are national averages, which hide the gap between wet highlands and dry interiors, and reanalysis rainfall over deserts carries wide uncertainty.

Libya relies almost entirely on groundwater. Renewable resources are put at 700 million m³ a year, or 111.5 m³ per person in 2015, far below the absolute scarcity line of 500 m³.¹¹ Five major aquifer systems underlie the country. Only the shallow coastal aquifers, the Jefara in the north-west and the Jabal al Akhdar in the north-east, are naturally recharged.¹¹ South of 29° North, the great sedimentary basins hold fossil water.¹¹ The largest, Sarir-Kufra, belongs to the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, which spans about 2 million km² across Libya, Chad, Sudan and Egypt.¹¹ The water use section shows how far withdrawals now exceed renewable supply.

Libya mines water it cannot replace. Renewable resources are about 700 million m³ a year.¹¹ Withdrawals were 4,268 million m³ in 2000 and 5,830 million m³ in 2012, equal to 817% of renewable resources.¹¹ Agriculture took 83% in 2012, municipalities 12% and industry 5%. More than 95% came from groundwater, much of it fossil.¹¹ A 2008 national strategy set a “sustainable” ceiling of 3,650 million m³ a year, including 3,000 million m³ of fossil water.¹¹

Farms on fossil water

Libya could irrigate about 750,000 ha on fossil water, but only 40,000 ha on renewable water.¹¹ Two wheat research projects at Kufra and in the Jefara were abandoned in the late 1970s.¹¹ About 470,000 ha were equipped for irrigation in 2000, and 316,000 ha were actually irrigated. By 2008 equipped land had fallen to 400,000 ha, while irrigated land rose to 335,000 ha.¹¹ Poor water, falling water tables and neglect shrank farming near the coast.¹¹ Tariffs set in 1994 charged farms 0.048 dinars per m³ of river water, against a full cost of 0.235 dinars in 2011.¹¹

The Great Man-Made River

The river was sold as a farm project, but the cities took its water. Law No. 11 of 1983 created its authority, funded mainly by levies on fuel, tobacco and foreign travel.¹² Works began in 1984.¹¹ Phase I, finished in 1991, carries up to 2 million m³ a day over 1,600 km. It draws on the Sarir and Tazerbo well fields and serves Benghazi and Sirte.¹¹¹⁴ Phase II has delivered up to 2.5 million m³ a day to Tripoli since 1997.¹¹ Installed costs by 2008 were US$5.53 billion for phase I, US$8.05 billion for phase II and US$6.0 billion for phase III.¹²

At full build-out, 1,300 wells were to produce 6.5 million m³ a day.¹³ Phases IV and V remained outstanding in 2016, and NATO bombing destroyed some reservoirs.¹¹ Municipalities now use 98% of the transferred water.¹¹ The river supplied 60% of all freshwater used in Libya in 2021.²² The aquifers are responding. Pumping at Tazerbo since 2004 has opened sinkholes as pressure in the Nubian sandstone falls.³¹ At higher pumping rates, drawdowns there could exceed 50 m by 2030.³² The World Bank noted in 2026 that the river’s sustainability has not been assessed against climate projections.¹⁸

Water as a target

Since 2011 the river’s wells and pipes have become leverage. In 2017 an armed group closed the Hasawna pipelines to Tripoli to demand a prisoner’s release.²⁴ In May 2019 gunmen forced staff at a station 400 km south of Tripoli to shut the valves. The UN said some 2 million people could be affected.²³ By August 2020 the authority had reported 149 wells attacked.²⁵ About 190 wells were out of service by February 2021, and more than 4 million people faced water shortages.²¹ In July 2021 saboteurs blew up station 353, cutting water to Bani Walid, Misrata, Khoms and Zliten.²⁵

Withdrawals over time

FAO’s AQUASTAT estimates put Libya’s freshwater withdrawals at 1.2 billion m³ in 1975 and 5.7 billion m³ in 2022. Agriculture’s share of the total moved from 87% in 1994 to 83% in 2022.

Source: FAO AQUASTAT via the World Bank World Development Indicators, retrieved September 2026. AQUASTAT revises national figures irregularly and fills the years between surveys, so a jump between two adjacent years usually marks a new national estimate rather than a change on the ground.

The Great Man-Made River carries fossil groundwater from the southern well fields to the coast, and the rest of the asset base is small and ageing.

Dams

Libya has 18 to 19 dams, depending on the count, with about 390 million m³ of storage capacity.¹¹¹⁶ Their real yield is far lower, with average annual storage of only about 61 million m³.¹¹ Wadi Ghattara near Benghazi, built in 1973, is the largest at 135 million m³. Wadi Kaam near Khoms, from 1979, holds 111 million m³.¹⁶ The large dams average more than 40 years old and are increasingly exposed to changing hydrology.¹⁶ Some 20 more dams were planned, adding 136.6 million m³.¹¹ In June 2026 the water resources minister discussed structural studies of existing dams, and sites for new ones, with a British firm.⁵

Desalination

Installed desalination capacity reached 226.3 million m³ a year in 2006, across more than 400 plants, 17 of them large.¹¹ Actual output was only about 70 million m³ in 2012.¹¹ Thermal plants sit at power stations.¹¹ The fleet has struggled. In July 2024 Tobruk ran at 20% of capacity, Derna at 50%, and Susah and Zawiya at 25%, while the Zliten plants were idle.⁶ In August 2026 the National Oil Corporation said the Zuwara plant was being prepared to restart after more than seven years, with gas now flowing from Mellitah.⁸

Wastewater and networks

In 2010 Libya had 79 wastewater treatment plants with 74 million m³ of capacity.¹¹ In February 2025 the prime minister inaugurated the Hadba treatment plant in Tripoli.⁹ FAO’s latest figure for access to improved drinking water, from 2001, is 71%.¹¹

Storm Daniel

Storm Daniel in September 2023 caused US$136.5 million of damage to water and sanitation, plus US$20.5 million in losses.¹⁷ Three dams and one wastewater treatment plant were completely destroyed. Recovery needs were put at US$234.6 million.¹⁷ Treatment and desalination plants were already not working properly before the flood.¹⁷ Derna’s desalination plant restarted in October 2023 after maintenance.⁷

The asset base in numbers

Sources: FAO AQUASTAT regional dam inventories (CC BY 4.0), which list large dams with a published capacity and can lag recent construction; the MENA Water Review major projects register, where each record cites its source on the project page. The database follows large contracted projects, not the whole asset base.

The coastal aquifers failed first. Pumps became necessary from the 1960s as water tables fell with the oil boom.¹¹ In the Jefara plain the seawater interface moved up to 2 km inland. Salinity rose from 150 ppm to more than 5,000 ppm between 1950 and 1990.¹¹ Irrigation had salinised 190,000 ha of soil by 1998.¹¹ Well water sampled in 2003–04 at Susa, in the north-east, was excessively polluted and unfit to drink.³³ A 2026 World Bank diagnostic found E. coli in 28% of water sources and 46% of household samples.¹⁸

Sewage and the sea

Of 504 million m³ of municipal wastewater produced in 2012, only 40 million m³ were treated, all of it reused on 2,900 ha.¹¹ In 2021 only 45% of households and institutions were connected to public sewers. The rest used cesspits that pollute groundwater, and most wastewater reached the sea untreated.²¹ Desalination faltered too. Seven plants ran at 28% of design efficiency, and the Bomba Bay plant was out of service.²¹

Derna, 2023

Studies for the Derna dams began after the 1959 flood. The two dams first filled in 1979 and 1981.¹⁶ Inspections in 1985 and 1994 found severe settlement.¹⁶ A 2021 state audit found them unmaintained despite funds allocated in 2012 and 2013.²⁷ On the night of 10–11 September 2023, Storm Daniel’s floods broke both. Derna Dam failed at about 23:00. Abu Mansour followed at about 02:40, releasing more than 7,000 m³/s into a city channel built for 1,000.¹⁶ The failures made the damage nearly 20 times worse.³⁴

Water-sector damage came to US$136.5 million, and three dams and a treatment plant were destroyed.¹⁷ Within a week, at least 55 children in Derna had been poisoned by polluted water.¹⁹ By 7 November, 6,496 cases of diarrhoeal disease had been reported.²⁰ In July 2024 a court convicted 12 officials. The Supreme Court later quashed the rulings, and a retrial was ordered in October 2025.²⁶ A World Bank assessment in June 2026 called for a national dam safety programme.¹⁶

The reported indicators

Sources: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme via the World Bank; SDG 6.3.1 and 6.3.2 from the UN Statistics Division SDG database, retrieved September 2026. Safely managed means an improved source on the premises, available when needed and free from priority contamination. SDG 6.3.2 rests on each country’s own monitoring network, so a high share can mean few water bodies were assessed, and values move when methods change between reporting rounds.

Libya shares no surface water, but most of its groundwater lies in transboundary aquifers.¹¹ The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System is shared with Egypt, Sudan and Chad. The Murzuq–Djado basin links Libya to Algeria and Niger, and the North-Western Sahara system to Algeria and Tunisia.¹¹ FAO estimates that 700 million m³ of fossil groundwater a year flows from Libya to its neighbours.¹¹

The Nubian aquifer

The Nubian system extends over 2 million km² and holds about 540,000 km³ of water, of which 15,340 km³ is thought exploitable.²⁸ Egypt holds 38% of its area, Libya 34%, Sudan 17% and Chad 11%.¹¹ Egypt and Libya set up a joint authority in 1989 and adopted its constitution in 1992.²⁸ Its headquarters are in Tripoli. Sudan joined in 1996, and Chad in 1999 or 2000, depending on the source.¹¹²⁸ The authority can study the aquifer, plan joint use and ration consumption in member states.²⁸ On 18 September 2013 the four water ministers signed a Regional Strategic Action Programme, prepared under a GEF project executed by the IAEA.²⁸

The western Saharan aquifers

For the North-Western Sahara Aquifer System, a permanent technical committee of the three national water authorities has operated since 2008.¹¹ On 24 April 2024 Libya, Algeria and Tunisia signed an agreement in Algiers on consultation over the shared groundwater.²⁹ On 29 July 2026 Libya and Algeria agreed a roadmap for cooperation on irrigation and water resources, with joint technical teams.³⁰

The record

Shared river basins

The register also places small areas of Libya in the Lake Chad basin, too little to carry here.

Joint bodies

• Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC)Lake Chad · 1964 · Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Libya

Source: the river basin organisation database of the Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database (2013). A joint body on paper is not evidence that it meets.

Shared aquifers

• Coastal Aquifer System of the Jeffara Plain / Système Aquifère Côtier de la Plaine de la DjeffaraTunisia · data moderate
• North-Western Sahara Aquifer System / Système Aquifère du Sahara SeptentrionalAlgeria, Tunisia · data good
• Nubian Sandstone Aquifer SystemChad, Egypt, Sudan · data good
• Système Aquifère de Mourzouk - Djado / Murzuk-Djado Aquifer SystemAlgeria, Chad, Niger · data limited

Source: IGRAC and UNESCO, Transboundary Aquifers of the World. Data reliability is IGRAC’s own assessment of the information behind each outline.

The General Water Authority managed conventional water resources from 1972. In 2012 a Ministry of Water Resources was created to bring the national water bodies together.¹¹ Other agencies run parts of the system. The Great Man-Made River Authority dates from 1983, the General Company for Water Desalination from 2007 and the General Company for Water and Wastewater from 2008.¹¹ The Ministry of Energy and Electricity manages the power stations with thermal desalination plants.¹¹ Dams fall under Law No. 3 of 1982, which regulates the use of water resources.¹⁶

Law and strategy

The 1982 Water Law made water public property.¹¹ The National Strategy for Integrated Water Resources Management, 2000–2025, was drafted in 1999 and approved in May 2005.¹¹ Very little of this legislation has been implemented, FAO noted.¹¹ Tariffs cover only a third of the cost of producing water, and collection is low. Farmers pay only for the subsidised energy used to pump their water.¹¹

Divided authority

The World Bank names the fragmentation of authority across rival governing institutions as a core constraint.¹⁸ In March 2026 the Tripoli-based government’s new water resources minister presented a plan to restructure the ministry.¹⁰

Libya’s water future depends on institutions as much as engineering. Renewable water covers only a fraction of use, and the rest is mined from fossil aquifers.¹¹ Hot days could nearly double by 2100 under high emissions, while droughts lengthen.¹

The damage record sets the priorities: dam safety after Derna, desalination plants that actually run, and a river network kept in repair. Each needs a single, funded authority. The World Bank’s diagnosis is fragmentation, and until that ends most plans stay on paper.¹⁸