Water Security in Tunisia: Debated Issues

August 5th, 2019

Fairouz Slama, Jamel Chahed, University of Tunis El Manar, National Engineering School of Tunis, Tunisia

This contribution is based on the book, National Water Security; case study of an arid country Tunisia, published by Springer (2019).

Water security imperatives, in several water-scarce countries, have led to water management programs based on a total and centralized control of surface water and groundwater resources. In some cases, this management model has led to excessive water withdrawals threatening water resources sustainability in a context of rising global environmental changes hazards. A further challenge of centralized control is coordinating the actions of the different actors and integrating the participation of the users. On the other hand, centralized organization of water management administration has made it possible to coordinate the technical resources and establish a national water management vision.

Centralized control of water management can be considered in relation to two essential questions that are debated extensively among the water community. Firstly, ‘how to secure the water supply’? There are many solutions to enhance water resources’ potential and improve the performance of the hydraulic system in order to cope with growing water needs. Secondly, ‘how to achieve good water governance?’ This question covers legislative, institutional, regulatory and cognitive aspects of governance.

In this article we explore these two questions, using Tunisia as a case study1. In Tunisia climate varies from hot-summer Mediterranean in the north to hot desert in the south. The average rainfall is about 1500mm/year in the far north, around 500 mm/year in the North, 250 mm/year in the Centre and does not exceed 50 mm in the far south located in heart of Sahara. Rainfall is characterized by intra-annual and inter-annual variability. Tunisia also faces strong salinities and salinization processes of the available water resources, and general overexploitation of the groundwater resources.

How to secure the water supply

In Tunisia, the control of mobilized water resources is almost complete. Yet, there are still opportunities to improve water balances by mastering their components that are water inputs, outputs and storage variations for a given natural or artificial system, over a period of time.

It is recommended to (1) develop soil water resources, and green water, involved amongst others in food production and whose significant potential is not taken into account in conventional water balances; and (2) produce and reuse additional quantities of unconventional water resources. These technical solutions could increase water supply.

For example, there is evidence that blue water availability could improve significantly if the dams keep their original purpose of groundwater recharge. Two supporting case studies are (1) a project in northern Tunisia, aiming to mobilize additional surface water flowing into the sea during exceptional floods and their transfer and storage in aquifers, and (2) a comparative analysis of the irrigation development from dams in the arid zone of the country versus aquifers recharge. Both studies show that important water amounts can be stored and trapped into the thick unsaturated zone and can then be pumped over decades.

However, demand for water is ever-increasing. Energy (especially used for treating waste-water and desalinization) and long-term environmental impact issues are considered to be limiting factors.

Risk management is presented as an essential practice for avoiding any long-term overexploitation and degradation of quality. However, risk assessment requires adequate information. Securing the supply of water resources, particularly the provision of drinking water, must consider chemical and bacteriological water quality, disturbances associated with malicious, criminal or terrorist acts or due to situations of instability and conflict. Securing the supply of large cities also requires the identification of strategic reserves e.g. underground aquifers of good quality water located near metropolises.

Information about Tunisia’s water balance seems to suffer from several inconsistencies and uncertainties. Despite the important investigations undertaken for the inventory and estimation of water resources and their use, more information is needed on water quality and quantity. Tools used to analyze and transform available information in order to orient national water policy must be modernized through establishing structured databases and dynamic and interactive geographical information systems and using reliable modeling tools. Processing this information is, for instance, crucial when dealing with the problems of joint surface water-groundwater management, mainly the crucial problem of groundwater over-exploitation.

How to achieve the good water governance

Robust water management decision making requires sound theoretical knowledge and adequate technical information. The improvement of Tunisia’s water resources management requires the revision and adjustment of the institutional and regulatory instruments in order to reinforce the optimal valuation of water, to promote the integrated management of the resource and to inscribe the risk as a fundamental element of water resource management.

Improving water resource management must also implement cognitive reforms, i.e. giving Tunisian society the intellectual means to rethink and reformulate the future of its water resources. In this area, progress is to be made in the modernization of information treatment and use, in the implementation of local and democratic water management, in the massive training of water users, in the reinforcement of the place of water in school education, in the development of innovation, expertise and research applications. Among all these reforms, the massive acquisition of knowledge about water represents the keystone of this cognitive edifice.

The developed analyses of the Tunisian context 2 show that these objectives require the setting up of an effective coordination and cooperation between the various stakeholders at local, regional and national levels. In addition, it requires the development of mechanisms for consultation, regulation, arbitration and conflict resolution.

These considerations have led to proposals for the creation of new agencies and administrative bodies that aim at complementing and rehabilitating the current institutional and regulatory framework to face the new challenges of the water sector. In particular, it is proposed to create a “Higher Water Council” for Tunisia, with a permanent technical committee. The Higher Water Council would harmonize actions in the framework of a national water policy, planning and allocating of water resources at the various scales: National Water Plan and Regional water Management Plans. The latter allows integrated, participatory water management and water planning.

One key challenge that the Higher Water Council’s could address is the identification of areas where decentralized mechanisms can be more efficient. It could further identify and prioritize the different areas of action for central state intervention.

The Higher Water Council will further create of specialized agencies, including a Great Scientific Water Agency. The new agencies are expected to support and modernize water policies, strengthen expertise, stimulate innovation, and promote research and development in the field of water. In addition, there will be significant effort to improve data collection and the development of information networks. Furthermore, creating an Agency for the Hydraulic Public Domain Protection should play a key role in achieving the objectives related to water resources conservation.

In the context of water scarcity, the optimization of water resources covers serious stakes. The implementation and update of norms and standards in Tunisia is thus a crucial issue.

Considering all these issues correlated, the reforms of the legislative and regulatory framework must be devoted to the economic, social and environmental values of the resource by developing economic instruments to influence demand and direct investments. The reforms should also accelerate and reinforce ongoing actions; particularly the modernization of Tunisia’s water information system.

The case of Tunisia, remains one of the interesting ones in the arid region as it is one of the countries that gathered the most important information about its water resources and needs during more than 50 years. The Tunisia case may serve as a model for other countries in the world, for its detailed water resources evaluation, management techniques and governance, because of the successes as well as the failures it has encountered and the ongoing discussions on the overall model, specially enhanced during the democratic transition.

References :

Besbes, M., Chahed, J., Hamdane, A. (2018) National Water Security: Case Study of an Arid Country: Tunisia. Springer International Publishing, Cham. 272 pp. Besbes M, Chahed J, Hamdane A (2018) Water Security in Tunisia: Debated Issues. In: National Water Security: Case Study of an Arid Country: Tunisia. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 149-182. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-75499-4_6.

Fairouz Slama is a civil engineer, Dr in hydraulic engineering and Associate Professor at the National Engineering School of Tunis. Her research fields of interest are numerical modelling of solute transport in porous media, groundwater modelling, soil and groundwater monitoring and irrigation and drainage. She is the secretary of the Tunisian chapter of the “International Association of Hydrogeologists” (IAH) and co-organized meetings about the “water code” law within a network of Tunisian NGO’s. (Email: fairouz.slama@enit.utm.tn )

Jamel Chahed is a Hydraulics Engineer and Doctor es Sciences, Professor at the National Engineering School of Tunis. His work focuses on hydrodynamics and transfers in the industrial and environmental fluid systems, transport and dispersion of pollutants, water resources management and governance. The major contribution in this field concerns the enlargement of fresh water concept to all water resources at the national scale including the “Virtual-Water” content of rainfed agriculture and of foodstuffs trade balance.

The views expressed in this article belong to the individual authors and do not represent the views of the Global Water Forum, the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance, UNESCO, the Australian National University, or any of the institutions to which the authors are associated. Please see the Global Water Forum terms and conditions here.