The Oasis of Badarian

Description

Since about five decades, the Algerian Sahara has been the subject of many interventions aimed at improving the living conditions of the local population, the integration of the southern territories into the national territory and the development of a Saharan agriculture that can contribute to achieving food self-sufficiency in Algeria.

In the area of Timimoun, new agricultural development schemes have been set-up alongside the old oases. The community irrigation system of foggara have experienced difficulty after the introduction of boreholes exploiting groundwater for intensive irrigation. Then a mix of traditional irrigation systems (foggaras), entrepreneurial agriculture and drinking water supply activities coexist nowadays in a weak equilibrium and potential tensions when foggaras drying up are attributed to intesive pumping.

Location and Extension

The oasis of Badrian is one of the numerous oases of the Timimoun oases archipelago situated in the center of the Algerian Sahara very close to the city of Timimoun in the Adrar region.

The general trend of the oasis of Badrian’s aquifer is related to the Continental Intercalary (CI) aquifer which is a large Saharan fossil water reservoir of 1 M km², shared between Algeria, Lybia and Tunisia. More locally, the water use of the larger oasis of Timimoun impacts and is impacted by water catchments from Badrian’s oasis.

Challenges

• Conciliate water needs in old oasis, new irrigation schemes and drinking water supply.
• Limited knowledge on the local hydrogeological potentialities and groundwater hydrodynamic.
• Emerging tensions between groundwater users.
• Continuous extension of the new irrigation perimeter.
• Legal frameworks about groundwater pumping and foggaras protection are not applied.
• Several institutions of water management coexist.

Oportunities

• Peasants in the old oasis are motivated to contribute to set-up a ground water management plan.
• Local authorities have expressed their need to avoid tensions around groundwater exploitation.

Legal framework

• Digging new wells and boreholes is subjected to authorization of the Water Resources Administration, based on technical studies.
• Foggaras protection area is subjected to a legal framework.

Activies

1. Analysis of the local dynamics of the aquifer through pumping trials
2. Institutional analysis of water management through semi-directive surveys
3. Modelling of the dynamics of water uses and supply
4. Participatory modeling of water uses
5. Role-Playing games with stakeholders
6. Co-building of new management scenarios
7. Setting up of a citizen information system on groundwater availability and dynamics