Water shortages began in Tripoli the day after rebel forces entered the city Aug. 21. Multiple explanations have been offered for the water shortages, which are affecting more than 3 million people in Libya's western coastal region. The cause appears to be a cutoff of the flows from the western system of the Great Man-Made River (GMR), a huge subsurface water pumping and transport system that taps aquifers deep in the Sahara and transports the water to Libya's coast. Approximately three-fourths of Tripoli's municipal water resources come from the GMR, with the rest coming from seawater desalinization plants, local wells and sewage treatment plants. The residents of Tripoli have exhibited resilience in the face of the shortage thus far. Part of the solution has been a mass tactical shift in the allocation of potable water. The GMR allowed pre-war daily water use to average more than 200 liters per capita. The amount of water needed per capita for survival is much lower — humanitarian agencies have been placing the figure at 3-4 liters (assuming low activity levels) — meaning that even a massive decrease in the flow of water to Tripoli does not automatically create the danger of large numbers of deaths, so long as the situation does not deteriorate further. None of this is to say that the situation in Tripoli is sustainable should it last for too long — at least in the eyes of the National Transitional Council. There will be a limit to the amount of goodwill the people of Tripoli hold toward the NTC, whose fight against Gadhafi has led to the current situation. At a certain point, continued water shortages in Tripoli will create rising anger toward the rebel council, and toward NATO as well, as people will begin to point fingers at those who led them into their current plight. The logistical challenges of bringing order to Tripoli while continuing to fight Gadhafi's remaining forces have the potential to become a major burden. The NTC will thus seek to ensure that the GMR is brought back online as soon as possible.
