All the time the struggle in Libya was raging, and until the final assault on Tripoli a few weeks ago, I wondered about water as a strategic weapon of war, especially options for it in water stressed, centralised countries. Libya seemed a ripe case for such tactics.

The Great Man Made River, a series of massive pipelines pumping some 1bn cu.m/yr of fresh water from underground reservoirs in the South to the populated areas of the coast, has been Gaddafi's gift to the nation.

Although one Libyan water professional I spoke to referred to it as "the Great Mad Man River" because of its enormous capital costs and as yet unknown environmental consequences, you can't deny it has been a piece of hydrological hubris on a par with the Hoover or Aswan dams, that has brought massive gains to the populations of Benghazi and Greater Tripoli.