Inside Egypt's 310 km Man-Made River – Carrying Water Uphill Into the Sahara

West of the Nile Delta, a watercourse of open canal, buried pipe and lift stations carries water into Egypt's Western Desert, toward fields that lie higher than the place the water starts. In this calm, three-hour documentary we follow that water: from an intake on the Rosetta branch through twelve pipelines laid side by side, from the drains of the old delta through a treatment plant near El Hammam, up onto the plateau, and down to the salt in the soil. The 310 km of the title is the combined length of those twelve pipelines; published lengths for the watercourse itself run from about 114 to about 174 km. Then we visit water transfers in Libya, southern Egypt, California, Arizona and China. Most figures are design values. Where the published figures differ or are missing, we say so. Chapters 00:00 Welcome (chapters to be added from the final audio: The Watercourse, Its Number and Its Desert · The First Water: From the River Branch, Under Pressure · The Second Water: Drains, the Plant at El Hammam, and the Canal Beyond · The Lift, the Third Water, and the Salt · Other Waters Sent Across Dry Land: Libya, Toshka, California · Arizona, China, and Back to the Plateau at Night)