Treeing the CATS: Artificial Gulf Formation by the Chotts Algeria–Tunisia Scheme

Excerpt

The Chotts Algeria–Tunisia Scheme (CATS) is a grand design to form a man-excavated new Mediterranean Sea gulf to be shared by Tunisia and Algeria. It is well known that closed and nearly closed seawater volumes fluctuate in response to changes in local aerial regional evaporation and precipitation rates. The Zone of Chotts, bordering the Sahara at 32–35 North Latitude by 5–10 East Longitude, shared by Algeria and Tunisia, is an aggregation of playas that currently exist under a high-evaporation/low-rainfall regime (often >20:1); nowadays these particular playas are subjected to sporadic ephemeral floods. The mean annual rainfall is ~90–120 mm in southern Tunisia and Algeria, with high inter-annual variability. The rainy season extends from November to February, with summertime winds emanating from the northwest, and from the southwest during wintertime and Spring—that is, blowing from the aridified, desolate and mostly uninhabited Sahara landscape. The mean regional evaporation is ~2,500–3,100 mm/year in both southern Tunisia and Algeria (Jean-Pierre et al. 2010). The terrain of the Chott Gharsa and Chott el Jerid is undergoing some ground subsidence (~0.001–0.27 mm/year) caused by local tectonic movements. (The word “terrain” is cognate with “terrace”, a relationship of some vital importance in our chapter’s exposition.) We intend the CATS to be a landscape recovery macro-project, a grand design of possibly future international significance in the Basin of the Mediterranean Sea. The CATS has been under public consideration for more than a century—the novelist Jules Verne first mentioned a fictional scientific version of it in his published works in 1877s Hector Servadac. Tunisia, in area, is one of the smallest ecosystem-nation on the African continent. Yet, much of its national terrain is salt-encrusted and salt-saturated arid soil wasteland that is unfit for human settlement at this time. If we do connect the Zone of Chotts with the Mediterranean Sea, then Tunisia and Algeria will gain a new seacoast caused by the anthropogenic creation of a new gulf. Northern Africa had previously experienced a similar transformational geomorphic event: the 14 March 1869 commencement of the now ~200 km² Great Bitter Lake in Egypt (32.39°E Long. by 30.37°N Lat.), when the Mediterranean Sea’s water first began to flow into the salty dry basin during the construction of the Suez Canal. The first, basic iteration of the Suez Canal landscape shaping effort required the removal of ~74,000,000 m³; if dug, the CATS would require, minimally, the rapid and largely automated industrial excavation of ~85,500,000 m³. Earth-moving machinery is larger and more efficient today than equipment used a 100 years ago and we expect the CATS macro-project to be physically doable at reasonable cost (Haycraft 2000). Ultimately, it is possible that our artificial gulf will become a major twenty-first century northern African industrialization seaport, Port Tritonis, potentially almost equivalent to the Mainport Rotterdam (51°55′51″N Lat. by 4°28′45″E Long.) logistics node in The Netherlands, that is close to existing and developed future markets. In Europe, Mainport Rotterdam alone, as the largest seaport and major industrial complex there, accounts for >100 million tonnes of containerized and liquid cargo yearly. However, whereas Mainport Rotterdam is served by canal and river barges, highway carrying motor vehicles, airports and multiple railroad networks throughout Europe, the prospective Port Tritonis could be served only by automobiles, trucks, trains and aircraft. …