The project is owned by the Great Man-Made River Project Authority and was funded by the Gaddafi government. The second phase (dubbed First water to Tripoli) was inaugurated on 1 September 1996. The first phase required 85 million m³ of excavation and was inaugurated on 28 August 1991. The project's construction was divided into five phases. The Great Man-made River Project (GMRP) was conceived in the late 1960s and work on the project began in 1984. In 1953, efforts to find oil in southern Libya led to the discovery of large quantities of potable fossil water underground.

The late Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi described it as the ' Eighth Wonder of the World'. It consists of more than 1,300 wells, most more than 500 m deep, and supplies 6,500,000 m 3 of fresh water per day to the cities of Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirte and elsewhere. Īccording to its website, it is the largest underground network of pipes (2,820 kilometres (1,750 mi)) and aqueducts in the world. The water covers a distance of up to 1,600 kilometers and provides 70% of all freshwater used in Libya. The project utilizes a pipeline system that pumps water from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System from down south in Libya to cities in the populous Libyan northern Mediterranean coast including Tripoli and Benghazi. It is the world's largest irrigation project. The Great Man-Made River ( GMMR, النهر الصناعي العظيم) is a network of pipes that supplies fresh water obtained from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System fossil aquifer across Libya. Tobruk may for instance end up connected to Ajdabiya instead of to the Jaghboub well field. Note that different routes have been proposed for the not-yet-implemented phases (dashed).

Water pipeline as built drawing