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The North West Sahara Aquifer System: the complex management of a strategic transboundary resource
[The North West Sahara Aquifer System: the complex management of a strategic transboundary resource]
The North Western Sahara Aquifer System (NWSAS) is a very large aquifer system extending on a 1 million
Km2 surface, under the national territories of Algeria, Libya and Tunisia. Due to the lack of fresh surface
water availability in these desert and semi-arid regions, its importance is today strategic for the above
mentioned countries economic and social development, As a consequence of it, in the last decades, its
exploitation has increased exponentially, causing serious hydrogeological problems and worries for the
future. Supported by the scientific community, many national and international organizations, the
Observatoire du Sahara Sud (OSS) above all, have recently raised the debate on the compatibility between
the Algeria, Tunisia and Libya withdraws and the very little groundwater resource renewal rate. The apparent,
but difficult, upcoming solution is a shared management of the whole aquifer system by the three involved
countries. In this context, some results of a hydrogeological study carried on the tunisian NWSAS region are
presented, focused on the actual exploitation state of the art definition and to estimate the different
withdrawal scenarios consequences at medium-long period on the aquifer system at local and regional scale.
UNESCO-IAH-UNEP
Language: Inglés
Format: PDF