The water crisis continues in Tiaret. The large city in the Western Highlands of Algeria found itself, at the beginning of June, without water after the drying up of the Ben Khedda dam which supplied the wilaya.
The authorities deployed an emergency plan to remedy the situation, but the dissatisfied population carried out numerous protest actions to express their anger and thirst.
Two important national roads linking Tiaret to Oran and Mascara were barricaded by demonstrators during Eid-el-Kébir which was celebrated on Sunday, June 16 in Algeria.
Friday, the day before this religious festival, the Minister of Hydraulics, Taha Derbal once again visited this wilaya where he put into service water transfer installations from the Chott Chergui catchment area to the town of Tiaret. This project which should reduce the tension in terms of water supply due to the drying up of the Bekhedda dam which traditionally supplies the city.
On this occasion, the Minister of Hydraulics announced the launch of a new program to reduce pressure on water. A type of program where, in the future, farmers could have their place.
This transfer project will supply the town of Tiaret with 10,000 m³ of water daily, which will bring the total capacity to 34,000 m³.
On this occasion, the minister announced that ” on June 23, work will begin on the drinking water supply project for 11 municipalities in the wilaya of Tiaret and the delegated wilaya of Ksar Chellala, from the Djermaya basin “, according to the APS agency.
To deal with the situation while other regions of the country are suffering from a lack of water, Algeria has released an envelope of more than 27 billion Algerian dinars, or a little more than 200 million dollars, to implement implement urgent projects for the benefit of areas exposed to water stress in the country. This amount was revealed during the same visit by Taha Derbal.
Water management in Algeria: the need to change approach
During a press briefing, the minister stressed that ” the walis of the Republic received correspondence on Thursday to contact water resource managers in order to immediately begin the implementation of the projects submitted, which include wells, storage facilities, and others to mobilize water resources, provided that the completion times do not exceed four months .”
This program is similar to small-scale hydraulic operations such as the installation of a water pumping station from the Sebaou wadi to the Taksebt dam, in the wilaya of Tizi-Ouzou.
In the space of a few weeks in 2023, the public company Cosider installed several large diameter pipes and high-power pumps which made it possible to prevent tens of thousands of cubic meters of fresh water from the wadi Sebaou from flow into the sea.
Hydrogeologist Malek Abdesselam from the University of Tizi-Ouzou had suggested such an operation and, on several occasions, had spoken in favor of the construction of dikes or pumping stations.
Another example of implementation concerns Mitidja with artificial recharge of the groundwater. The digging of infiltration basins near the El Hararch Wadi allowed 2011 and 2014 a rise in the water table level to the great satisfaction of farmers who had seen their wells dry up. In 2015, researcher Djerad Hassiba from the University of Blida measured “ an increase in the piezometric level ” of the water table.
Peasant practices have long made it possible to harvest water from wadi floods. This is the case in the steppe environment where simple reservoirs of earth and stones allow the spreading of floods toward the fields.
This practice requires few resources. Simple gabions or big bags filled with gravel and pebbles can divert water and contribute to its infiltration into the groundwater.
The case of the Mzab farmers is known worldwide as an example of collecting flood water to irrigate palm groves and recharge the surface water table with the surplus. The case of the ghosts of Oued Souf and the foggaras of Touat (Adrar) are also there to remind us of the ingenuity of the Algerian peasantry in adapting to arid environments.
However, the development of drilling has sometimes relegated these ancestral traditions to the background.
Soil defense and restoration
Due to the areas occupied and the techniques used, farmers have a direct influence on the possibilities of mobilizing rainwater.
It was after the Second World War that the colonial administration implemented programs to combat erosion and collect water in Algeria.
As part of the defense and restoration of the soil, stone lines, and earth banks were installed with the use of bulldozers on the sloping ground. But these operations, carried out without consulting rural populations, were not successful.
Due to lack of maintenance, many benches have collapsed and sometimes increased the erosion of the ground. From 1985 to 1995, researchers from the National Forestry Research Institute (Inrf) and the French Institute of Research for Development (Ird) examined the state of more than 300,000 hectares of benches in Algeria.
It appeared that “ 20% of the benches were completely erased with the plow by the farmers, while 60% have never been maintained and are gullied or almost erased ”.
More seriously, nearly 70% of the farmers surveyed were hostile to the benches installed on their land. “ They lead to a loss of cultivable area,” they declared.
As for the hill lakes, it appeared that their lifespan was only 4 to 10 years compared to the 40 expected. In question, the fact that “ the embankments and outlets are not regularly maintained ”, is a situation that is not without consequences on the siltation of the dams located downstream.
Archive images from the 1950s kept by the French Audiovisual Institute (INA) showing the export of sheep to the metropolis bear witness to the overexploitation of natural pastures.
We see that some of the animals exported came from herds which grazed the vegetation of the hills, which reduced the plant cover protecting the soil against erosion.
In many regions of Algeria, the proliferation of paths that crisscross on the slopes of these hills testify to the perpetuation of this practice.
If the presence of animals in the undergrowth can allow clearing and contribute to the reduction of fires, the animal load remains unsuitable to allow the regeneration of the vegetation.
From the 1970s, pastoral livestock cooperatives set up by agricultural services within the framework of the Association for the Development of Pastoralism showed that, where steppe rangelands were protected by fences regulating the presence of sheep, the vegetation was more abundant.
Water management: these ancestral techniques that have proven themselves
Gradually, from the mid-1980s, another approach to rainwater management emerged in Algeria. This is the case at INRF where researchers have adopted a new approach aimed at associating farmers and rural populations.
This approach was born from the critical analysis of ancient practices and experimental work. In 2012, an international group of researchers took stock of sixty years of research on water erosion and erosion control in the Maghreb.
Among their observations, it appeared that to reduce runoff and erosion on sloping soils, maintaining herbaceous vegetation was preferable to only trees.
Thus, in Tunisia, olive trees on bare soil only reduce erosion by 10% compared to 80% when the soil is more than 60% covered by “ litter, mulch or harvest residue ”. In Morocco, in the presence of natural vegetation, erosion does not exceed 2 t/ha/year, but as soon as the soil is plowed, it can reach 20 t/ha/year.
It has been observed that by replacing direct seeding with plowing, water infiltration into the soil was increased by 30%. However, in Algeria, plowing is still practiced on 7 million hectares of agricultural land.
In regions with eroded soils, to slow the flow of water into ravines, INRF and IRD researchers have built weirs using a wide variety of means: gabions, dry stones, wire mesh, used tires, fertilizer bags; then they planted fruit trees and fodder.
Gradually, they noted that ” the ravine was transformed into a linear oasis where biodiversity was recreated, while water dynamics were profoundly improved .” Better still, returning to the site ten years later, they noted that: ” These developments are still effective .”
These ” gentle methods “, unlike the old benches built using construction machinery, are managed by farmers and make it possible to capture surface water.
This is the case with the installation of dikes at the bottom of ravines, dry stone cordons, contour crops, mulching, or grassy strips gradually leading to the establishment of terraces. In Tunisia, the construction of stone cordons has reduced flooding in the Zioud wadi.
As the authors of this report assert: “ This approach to sustainable management of water and soil productivity appeals to farmers because it gives them back their freedom to innovate. It made it possible to restore traditional techniques for managing water and the fertility of mountain soils within the framework of renovated rural development .”
This new approach is also taken into account at the level of the Green Dam, this gigantic green belt designed to stop the advance of the desert in Algeria.
In August 2023, Saliha Fortas, Director of the Fight against Desertification and the Dam at the General Directorate of Forests (DGF) vert, indicated about this project: ” Its rehabilitation and extension, currently relaunched as part of a renewed strategy, will contribute further to the prosperity of the populations living in its spaces .”
An approach visible through the species chosen: “ Among these species, we have hardy trees such as the olive tree, the pistachio tree, the almond tree, and the carob tree,” she told the APS agency.
For its part, the Torba association for the development of agro-ecology in Algeria popularizes the installation of “ swales ” on sloping soils on small farms in the mountains (Babors, Djurdjura, Tlemcen). These trenches created, according to the contour lines, make it possible to retain water from storms and ensure its infiltration.
Water management through simple structures
The water crisis experienced by the wilaya of Tiaret served as a revealer of the effects of global warming in Algeria.
The experience of the last 60 years shows that water management can concern the agricultural sector and involve simple structures: hedges at the edge of fields, stone walls, half-moon basins around olive trees, cordons of stones, progressive terraces.
These are techniques known to farmers and do not require heavy mechanical means. These results have often been obtained through small funding and cooperation between North African and European researchers.
For these researchers, the speed of erosion poses a serious problem concerning “ the future supply of a growing population in the Maghreb, since it doubles every 25 years ”.
They therefore recommend making traditional works known and encouraging virtuous practices. Some researchers are in favor of granting subsidies to farmers adopting these practices as ecological services provided to society. Reducing plowing or waste grazing can help reduce the siltation of dams.
These are new means in the fight against widespread water stress which is gradually taking hold throughout the Maghreb.
