Water Resource Evaluation and Development in Libya — 1969–1989

Abstract

Water is a familiar resource and one which is rarely properly valued, and worse, frequently treated as if it were a ‘free good’. In a country such as Libya, which has no perennial surface-runoff and where no permanently flowing stream reaches the Mediterranean Sea, the value of its available water is proportionately important. At the same time Libya has some deeply rooted attitudes to resources, often culturally based, which have militated against the optimum long term use of its none too abundant renewable and non-renewable water. In addition Libya has undergone some remarkable changes in economic circumstances in the past twenty years. These changes of circumstance have been of particular importance because they stimulated expectations and water demand much more effectively than they brought about changes of attitude at national and local levels to regulate water allocation and inform water utilisation policies. The changes have been especially powerful where they have resulted from the deployment of new technologies which have had significant environmental impacts.