SWIM- WADIS-MAR News
Water harvesting and Agricultural techniques in Dry lands: an Integrated and Sustainable model in MAghreb Regions
The project aims at contributing to an integrated, sustainable and participative water harvesting and agriculture management in the watersheds of Oued Biskra in Algeria and Oum Zessar in Tunisia characterized by the overexploitation of groundwater, with a view to promote adaptation to climate change conditions and particularly droughts.
Activities implemented in Algeria include:
- Improvements of the geological 3D model of the Biskra intervention site
- Technical meetings and field visits in Biskra (10th to 17th May 2013)aiming to:
o perform a further water sampling campaign for hydrochemical and isotopic analysis.
o make new hydrogeological surveys and a video of possible identified intervention sites.
o define an agronomic intervention plan in synergy with the local agricultural extension agency ITDAS.
Activities implemented in Tunisia include:
- Technical meetings and field visits in Medenine (5th to 10th May 2013)with relevant stakeholders to discuss about aquifer artificial recharge solutions, agronomic, Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS) activities and tender procedures
- Preparation of a tentative hydrogeological and agricultural intervention plan. 3 micro-catchments of Oum Zessour watershed have been defined for intervention: Chaabet El Anaz site (up-stream area), Loudayette site (mid-stream area), Oued Moussa site (Down-stream area)
- Field visits to: 1) make short interviews and briefings with selected local beneficiaries (farmers); 2) collect salinized soils samples for hyperspectral remote sensing analysis
- A Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS) workshop in Medenine (13th June 2013) involving beneficiary farmers of the identified micro-catchments and other stakeholders (representatives of local authorities, researchers, professionals, representative of civil society, NGO).
The following activities in Algeria and Tunisia were also carried out:
- Drafting of all dossiers for tender procurements related to the supply of contracts and sharing of these documents with partners
- Preparation of a questionnaire to be compiled by farmers in Algeria and Tunisia within the Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS) and agronomic activities to identify socioeconomic characteristics, farming practices and farmers’ perceived environmental and climate change impacts.
- A three days training on Database and Groundwater Modeling (22nd to 26th April 2013) during which participants of Institut des Région Arides - Tunisie (IRA) and Agence nationale des Ressources Hydrauliques – Algerie (ANRH) shared experience with the Système Aquifère du Sahara Septentrional project (SASS) and SASS consultation Mechanism. Training material is going to be published at www.wadismar.eu and publicly available.
The WADIS-MAR web site has been enriched with new contents, photos and videos. A data sharing web tool was also developed after the completed process of data collection, homogenization and quality control. All information are available on the web server and files can be shared among partners using a user-friendly open source PHP interface.
For more information: