di Benedetta Nebiolo.
A quick glance at satellite maps reveals the proximity of the Sahara to the Mediterranean Sea, the unique coexistence between the world’s largest desert and the largest semi-enclosed sea. The Sahara is expanding and has already gained 10% in the last 100 years, especially in North Africa. This situation highlights the problem of access to water for the tens of millions of people who are between the desert and the sea, and finding a solution could benefit the entire Mediterranean. Climate change is also being felt in southern Europe, where temperatures are rising and rainfall is decreasing both in quantity and frequency.
The countries of North Africa have intense water scarcity, with Tunisia, Libya and Egypt all in the top 20 most stressed countries globally. These countries have less access to water, and are now well below the theoretical threshold of water scarcity set by the Global Water Forum at 1,000 m3/inhabitant/year and even below the poverty rate, which is half that amount. This index takes into account all water needs per capita, including for personal use but also for agriculture, industry and other needs that ensure food security and economic development. Algeria and Libya are particularly at risk, with less than 300m3/inhabitant/year of water available
This is also due to the effects of climate change and low rainfall, which averages between 60 and 90 mm/year in the region - much less than 600 mm/year available in southern Italy, for example. In addition to these factors, the continent’s population is constantly growing, which drastically increases the difficulties of access to water resources.
This article examines the delicate issue of access to water in the northernmost countries of Africa bordering on the Mediterranean, the causes, limits and possible solutions to address the water crisis.
Access to water as a human right
Access to water is not only a need for survival, but also a universal human right since 2010 when the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 64/292, which states that safe drinking water and sanitation are essential for the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights .
This resolution stresses that everyone has the right to sufficient drinking water for personal and household use, without discrimination. However, despite this recognition, millions of people around the world still do not have access to these vital resources, including in North African countries. "Due to poor infrastructure or bad economic management, millions of people around the world, most of them children, die every year from diseases caused by inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene," says Franklin Golay, WASH specialist in UNICEF.
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 6 (DG 6) calls for universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030; but the amount of fresh water needed goes well beyond these needs, Agriculture and industry require about 85% of the total.
The challenges of access to water in North Africa
In general, the main causes of water stress can be listed as follows:
demographic growth: The increase in population has increased the demand for water for domestic, agricultural and industrial use. In Egypt and Algeria, population growth is close to 2% per year, which means, in the case of Egypt, an additional population of 2 million people each year.
Protracted crisis situations, such as in Libya, which led to the collapse of the water sector.
The depletion of water and underground resources increases the risk of dry well drilling (as was dramatically demonstrated by the deaths of the very young Julen and Rayan, both fallen in unsealed dry wells in Spain and Morocco).
North African countries face the challenges of access to water differently, each with its own resources, knowledge and solutions.
In Algeria, for example, the largest country in Africa, water management is a major challenge, as both the need for drinking water and the continuous periods of drought require rapid and effective action. The country relies mainly on its 81 dams for water supply, but these water reserves can drop to one third of their capacity at the height of the dry season. In June this year, water shortages and water rationing in central Algeria caused public unrest, increasing pressure on the Ministry of Water Resources and Water Safety to find alternative sources of water. In fact, like most of its neighbouring countries, the decrease in rainfall is pushing Algeria to explore new solutions to ensure continuous access to water for the population.
With the Sahara desert having some of the largest groundwater reserves in the world and the country boasting over 1,200 km of coastline, Algeria has access to water sources that can be exploited with appropriate technologies. However, Franklin Golay points out that "the price of water extraction or desalination justifies its use for drinking water but not for agriculture". To cover the latter, which represents almost 85% of the country’s water demand, other long-term solutions are needed.
Another challenge is the ever-growing concentration of population and agriculture along the Mediterranean coast. In Libya, for example, 75% of the population lives on only 1.5% of the total area, in the Jiffarah plain and in Misrata. With limited access to surface water resources, the country has been forced to develop a strong dependence on groundwater and desalination.
Unfortunately, the excessive extraction of groundwater to meet the needs of a growing population and agriculture has led to depletion and saline intrusion into aquifers. This, combined with the protracted crisis, led to the collapse of the Libyan water sector. Once flourishing, with the flagship project of Gaddafi, the GMMRP (Great Man-Made River Project, with 1,300 wells and 4,000 kilometers of pipes, which transports 6.5 million cubic meters of water a day to the main cities of the country) The number of desalination and waste water treatment plants is now barely operational, as the level of investment required to maintain infrastructure has fallen dramatically. For example, the desalination plant in the city of Tobruk now supplies 15,000 m3 of fresh water a day, one-third of what it used to produce. Massive repairs are needed, leaving the city’s residents in difficulty for access to drinking water.
"Before considering appropriate solutions, it is necessary to establish an independent water authority that can efficiently manage the water distribution infrastructure and can establish a rate adequate to the resources needed to maintain this infrastructure.", says Franklin Golay.
Among all the countries of the region, Egypt is an exception for the presence of the Nile, which flows from south to north. It is the longest river in Africa and has provided Egypt with much more water than needed for thousands of years. However, water demand has increased dramatically with population growth and economic expansion to the point where today the Nile is unable to provide the country with the water it needs. The river barely reaches the Mediterranean! Over 90% of Egypt’s water resources come from the Nile. This dependency makes the country extremely vulnerable to any change in river water availability. This situation has been a source of conflict between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, where economies are rapidly exceeding nature’s water capacity.
Water management is addressed in the National Water Resources Plan 2037 of the Egyptian government, which outlines specific measures to address current and future problems in the water sector, Such as the construction of new irrigation systems, water desalination programmes in coastal areas and water reuse with treated waste water. For irrigation alone, the efficiency of the current system is estimated to be 50%, and the switch from surface irrigation techniques to drip irrigation techniques could therefore save large quantities of water.
Solutions for sustainable access to water
Efficient but expensive, desalination is widely used in Algeria where it accounts for 17% of drinking water, a figure that is expected to reach 60% by 2030. A single desalination plant can produce over 50 million litres per day. Using a multi-stage treatment system that relies primarily on reverse osmosis and water re-mineralization, desalination requires funding and human resources for operation and maintenance. The state of the Libyan desalination plants, after decades of political unrest, has shown that the seven plants still in operation are only operating at 28% of their operational capacity, The General Water and Waste Water Company has financial difficulties to cover maintenance costs.
In addition, the desalination process can pose problems with regard to its sustainability, both in terms of energy consumption if it is not combined with renewable energies, in terms of sustainable disposal of the concentrated brine produced which can have negative effects on neighbouring communities or the local ecosystem if it is not disposed of properly.
There are a wide range of alternative solutions for North African countries. Water reuse is a solution in line with the sustainability quest of this era: waste water treatment plants can provide "recycled" water for industry and agriculture, reducing dependence on fresh water. These plants require strong management authority, which is unfortunately no longer the case in Libya where only 10 of the 75 agricultural plants are still operational. As with desalination, associated costs per m3 of product remain high.
While water reuse can help increase access to water in the sector, reducing water use in agriculture can lead to faster results. Studies have shown, for example, that drip irrigation reduces water use by 30 to 70% and increases crop yields by 20 to 90% compared with traditional irrigation. In addition, prioritising less water-intensive crops can help to reduce the sector’s water consumption.
At the governance level, it has been observed that community-based water conservation measures are often more effective when they provide an income to the community. In Tunisia, there are about 2,500 water associations that manage the drinking water and irrigation systems, thus decentralizing the management of this important resource and empowering communities.
Finally, as Franklin Golay recalls: "Traditional solutions can often be very useful in providing sustainable access to water for populations because they are culturally appropriate by nature and have sometimes been tried for millennia". These solutions can be implemented at home to alleviate some of the burden of water services. The Qanat are a series of horizontal tunnels with a slight slope in mountainous areas, which allow water to be drained and provide water to arid areas. They provide a sustainable alternative that protects families from the scarcity of water. Rainwater has also been collected historically in the region, as shown by the Libyan Magen found in many homes and which stores clean water for months. In Egypt, the Bedouins have gone further, diverting runoff water into Wadi to store water for irrigation of agricultural land.
Developing, implementing and testing this wide range of solutions is an urgent issue for North African countries to combat water scarcity, But the lessons learned will also be of great benefit to the entire region and to the Mediterranean countries which currently benefit from better climatic conditions. It is expected that the lack of precipitation and depletion of groundwater resources will become increasingly common in the Mediterranean, and preventive measures will be essential to prevent water scarcity in the future.