Water Resources in Algeria - Part I

This chapter highlights the basic technical elements of the chapters presented in the book according to its four themes. Therefore, the chapter contains information on the current status of water resources in Algeria including surface water and groundwater, the hydrological investigations in Algeria and the impact of climate change on water resources, characterization of groundwater aquifers, and assessment of water resources to support the sustainable development in Algeria as an arid country in the MENA region.

Recently, Algeria has encountered various concerns in the sector of “water resource management” because of the rapid growth in the domestic, agricultural, and industrial activities. This chapter offers a summary of the essential surface water (e.g., rivers, lakes, and reservoirs) and groundwater resources in Algeria. The information is covered regarding the recently published articles, chapters, books, and conference proceedings. Moreover, the chapter lists the peer-reviewed journals, academic and institutional affiliations, and research funding agencies presented in the Scopus library, covering the water features in Algeria. Feasible and practical strategies needed for sustainable management of the water shortage concerns in Algeria are suggested. The chapter illustrates that the government, private and public sectors, and policymakers have handled several approaches concerning the country’s national water policy, water resources development and planning, and water purification and reclamation. The findings of this chapter would support organizations, stakeholders, government leaders, industrialists, and environmentalists, dealing with all water subjects in Algeria.

The water quality of aquifer is conditioned by geological formations crossed by water during its flow. So water crossing calcareous rocks becomes rich in bicarbonates; also water crossing saliferous rocks becomes rich of sulphates or chlorides. This affirmation can be applied to water of the karst aquifer of Taoura. The recharge of this aquifer comes from rainfall or by water of different draining zones of the watershed cross-border of Medjerda-Mellegue in south part of the city of Souk Ahras. The geological studies showed that the outcrop formations in the syncline contain groundwater in low level, which make the aquifer captive. This last is exploited by several wells (T1, T3, T7, D3, D5).

The observation of stratigraphic logs shows a lithological heterogeneity of the aquifer, which is going to explain the variation of its hydrochemical composition. Samples and analysis carried out showed that groundwater of this aquifer is rich in calcium and bicarbonate; however some wells are characterized by the domination of chlorides and sulphates; these anions are accompanied by sodium or by calcium.

So, the impact of geological rocks crossed by water is important on the characterization of groundwater quality. Also, the risks of pollution in unconfined parts of the aquifer are quasi unavoidable, and they are confirmed by concentration of nitrates >50 mg/l.

The mine is situated in the East Algerian near the frontiers of Tunisia. The exploitation of iron is stopped until 1967.The water samples were collected from groundwater and surface water. Physicochemical parameters were measured during fieldwork. Water samples were analyzed for major ions and metallic trace element.

We noted two aquifers, the first one is situated at 3 m under the soil, and it is connected with the Oued, and the second one is situated at 20 m deep. The water levels in the mine waste dump indicated the occurrence of a losing stream during the period of peak streamflow was a result of snowmelt runoff facilitates the displacement of pollutants.

The analysis realized permitting to study the evolution of the MTE in the two aquifers.

The electrical conductivity is very high near the mine. This situation explains the high concentrations of sulfate, chlorides, calcium, and sodium. The concentrations observed are generated by the phenomenon of dissolution of gypsiferous formations. The graphics realized shows hilt concentrations in the first aquifer, but in the deep, the concentrations become low. This repartition explains the retention of elements by the soil.

Algeria, with its natural resource factors, is a significant country in Africa and the world and is seeking a strong development in the demographic and economic scale. Algeria, with an area of 2.4 million km², is North Africa’s biggest nation. Sahara occupies most of this surface, unfit for farming, but rich in mineral resources. Over 90% of the population lives in the north, including a coastal land along the Mediterranean Sea, plains, hills, and highlands. In the north, the annual quantity of rain ranges from 300 to 1,000 mm. The annual amount of rain in the Sahara and the Saharan Atlas in the south is less than 100 mm. Algeria has 17 main hydrographic basins and shares with Tunisia the basin of Medjerda and with Morocco the basins of Tafna, Draa, Guir, and Daoura. Agriculture continues to play a dominant role in the economy of the country. Twenty years ago, agriculture accounted for more than 75% of the active population in the south. This has now dropped to about 20%. It is another tale in the country’s south. The population was only 0.9 million in 1967, but by 1987 it increased to nearly two million, and by 2010, it is over three million, and in 2019, it is around 43 million. About 40% of the inhabitants now rely for their livelihood on agriculture. The Algerian authority was facing serious problems in managing its soil and water resources. This chapter offers an overview of the present issues in pesticides that harm animal and human health and cause natural resource scarcity and environmental pollution by accumulating in soil and leaching into water bodies. Naturally, the current situation in Algeria is exacerbated by two important constraints:

This chapter also highlights the urgent need to develop new branches of chemistry that are less dangerous to human health and the environment. Therefore, we must pursue the goals of green chemistry. Green chemistry became responsible for finding suitable solutions to all old manufacturing problems by finding alternative solutions to all previous negatives.

Extreme hydrological events, such as floods and droughts, are some of the natural disasters that occur in several parts of the world. They are regarded as being the most costly natural risks in terms of the disastrous consequences in human lives and in property damages. The main objective of the present study is to estimate flood events in Cheliff watershed in giving return periods at the gauged stations, which is located in a semiarid region in the northwest of Algeria. The choice of this area is due to the significant floods observed in this watershed, which are occurring mainly from 1960 and 2006. A study is carried out to know the temporal variability and the place occupied by peak flows for both annual and monthly levels, which can finally determine the peak output of flood. We will try to understand the evolution of average and extreme flows according to rainfalls that are temporally associated with them. Frequency analysis is performed on different series of observed annual and monthly average discharges, including classical statistical tools as well as recent techniques. The obtained results show that the annual maximum approach is more appropriate in this case. This study also indicates the importance of continuous data monitoring in these stations.

The effect of climate change on the water resources of the Cheliff basin in Algeria was evaluated with a particular focus on the significant factors affecting the water reserves. The Cheliff basin, which is one of the largest basins in the north of Algeria, is affected by water scarcity due to the extension of industrial and agricultural activities with the population growth, on the one hand, and to a decline in water resources caused by extreme droughts, on the other hand. The results of the current climate change assessment revealed a downward trend in the precipitation ranging from 14 to 54% and a reduction in streamflows that exceeds 40% with a break observed at the beginning of the 1980s. According to different emission scenarios, several general circulation models (GCMs) predict an increase in temperature of +0.9°C to +5°C on average at the end of the twenty-first century, with a decrease in average rainfall of 10–30%. A conceptual model predicted a flow deficit ranging from 10 to 48% at different periods and in different scenarios.

This study found that the problem of water scarcity was exacerbated by poor management of available water resources and by the significant increase in the population, which exceeded five million in 2010. Intensive use of water for irrigation and economic development has put additional pressure on the limited water resources. All these facts call for a proper “fit for purpose” integrated water management policy for the whole country.

Algeria is the largest African and Mediterranean country. It is located in the southern seashores of the Mediterranean Sea. Its climate conditions are ranging from relatively wet to very dry which makes it confronted to high levels of rainfall deficits. The future rainfall evolution may be critical for human activities since increased temperatures may further exacerbate droughts and water shortages. In this study, the regional climate simulations RCA4 are evaluated over historical period 1951–2005 and then used to examine the rainfall and temperature projections over the end of the twenty-first century under two Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) scenarios. The historical simulations are evaluated against observations coming from the recent data sets of Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The trends in precipitation and temperature over historical (1951–2005) and projected future scenarios (2006–2060 and 2045–2100) was depicted by the estimation of the shifts of the three main climate zones existing in Algeria (Köppen-Gieger classification): warm temperate climates (C), steppe climate (BS), and desert climate (BW). Comparative to the mean climate zone surface areas derived from observations (1951–2005), all model simulations predict an expansion of desert climate zone at the expense of the temperate and steppe climate zones. This shift seems to particularly increase by the end of twenty-first century (2045–2100) under RCP8.5 scenario.

Evaporation (EP) from dams’ reservoirs measured using pans is one of the most important methods adopted for quantifying the loss of water through evaporation. Black box artificial intelligence techniques (AI) have been developed as alternative approaches for quantifying evaporation, and several kinds of models have been proposed worldwide. The present study uses the measurement of several climatic variables such as air temperature, wind speed, and relative humidity to test the performances of new AI techniques called evolving connectionist systems (ECoS), applied for predicting daily evaporation from several dam reservoirs located in Algeria country. Two ECoS models, namely, (1) offline-based dynamic evolving neural-fuzzy inference systems named DENFIS_OF and (2) online-based dynamic evolving neural-fuzzy inference systems named DENFIS_ON, were applied and compared for predicting daily evaporation. The results using ECoS models were compared to multiple linear regression (MLR) and artificial neural network (ANN) models. From the results obtained, it is seen that the ECoS models could predict daily evaporation from dam reservoirs with better accuracy than the ANN and MLR models.

This chapter aims to investigate the capabilities and usefulness of two new data-driven techniques: optimally pruned extreme learning machine (OPELM) and online sequential extreme learning machine (OSELM) newly applied and compared for predicting daily reference evapotranspiration (ET₀) in the Mediterranean region of Algeria. Using large data sets from east to west regions of Algeria, the models were developed using several well-known climatic variables as inputs: daily maximum and minimum air temperatures, wind speed, and relative humidity. The proposed models were compared using several well-known statistical indexes: root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and coefficient of correlation (R). The obtained results have shown that all the proposed models present high prediction accuracy and the OPELM models provide better overall performances compared to the OSELM models

Algeria is considered as a vulnerable country in the world regarding its water resource availability, especially in front of the changing climate conditions. Because the availability of water resources contributes strongly to the socioeconomic development of the country, the water supply is the main task challenge of the public institutions under the severe natural conditions of climate variability represented by the decrease of rainfall with the increase of evaporation and also the different anthropogenic pollutions.

Our study area concerned the alluvial aquifer of Mitidja plain. In the later decades, the trend of rainfall was decreased at about 20%, with important annual irregularity in time, which had a negative impact on the groundwater resources of the alluvial aquifer.

The analysis of piezometric map shows a drawdown level of groundwater from 1974 to 2010 with a decrease in water levels more than 10 m in average, and in the coastal sector, the wells have high salinity due to seawater intrusion after an overexploitation of groundwater in the catchment field, which induced a reverse flow of groundwater from the sea toward the aquifer.

The analysis of physicochemical parameters of groundwater shows high concentrations of nitrate for the major part of the plain; they are moderately higher than the standard value (50 mg/l). It is due to the anthropic activities in Mitidja plain such as the agricultural origin, primarily linked to the intensive and abusive uses of fertilizers. We can also report urban pollution in this plain; it comes from the discharge sewerage networks without treatment.

The karst aquifers of the Tlemcen Mountains are the region’s main groundwater resource. More than 270 boreholes have been drilled in this region and have a total production capacity of 40 million m³/year.

Surface karstic forms are not very developed. However, the numerous boreholes drilled in the region showed that the carbonate reservoirs are well karstified (and this to a depth of more than 500 m).

The increasing demand for water, combined with insufficient rainfall over the last few decades, has led to groundwater mining and a significant drop in the piezometric level. This problem was solved by using desalinated seawater as an alternative water source to reduce groundwater abstraction.

A more successful Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) would aim to abstract less water than the average annual recharge, by modulating abstraction according to seasonal recharge. In addition, it would be advisable to study the feasibility of artificial recharge of these aquifers during periods of heavy rainfall.

Groundwater quality is generally quite good, but these aquifers are vulnerable. Mapping intrinsic vulnerability to pollution is therefore necessary to improve water resource protection. Karst vulnerability mapping methods (such as the RISK method) have proven useful in documenting decisions related to drilling location and wastewater collection and treatment.

Résumé Les aquifères karstiques des Monts de Tlemcen constituent la principale ressource en eau souterraine de la région. Plus de 270 forages ont été réalisés dans cette région et ont une capacité de production totale de 40 millions de m³/an.

Les formes karstiques de surface ne sont pas très développées. Cependant, les nombreux forages réalisés ont démontré que les réservoirs carbonatés sont bien karstifiés (et cela jusqu’à plus de 500 m de profondeur).

La demande en eau croissante, conjuguée à l’insuffisance des précipitations au cours des dernières décennies, a entraîné la surexploitation de ces ressources et une baisse significative du niveau piézométrique. Ce problème a été résolu en utilisant l’eau de mer dessalée comme source d’eau alternative afin de réduire les prélèvements d’eau souterraine.

Une gestion intégrée des ressources en eau (GIRE) plus aboutie viserait à prélever moins d’eau que la recharge interannuelle moyenne, en modulant les prélèvements en fonction de la recharge annuelle. De plus, il serait souhaitable d’étudier la faisabilité de la recharge artificielle de ces aquifères pendant les périodes de pluies abondantes.

La qualité de l’eau souterraines est généralement assez bonne, mais ces aquifères sont vulnérables. Une cartographie fine de la vulnérabilité à la pollution intrinsèque est donc indispensable. Les méthodes de cartographie de la vulnérabilité du karst (telles que la méthode R.I.S.K.), se sont révélées utiles pour documenter les décisions relatives à l’implantation des forages et à la collecte et au traitement des eaux usées.

For sustainable development in arid zones, the management of soil resources is essential; this resource management includes several parameters, among others the evaluation of soil fertility and the production of chemical fertility maps of the studied soils. To carry out this work, we chose an irrigable perimeter of Tadjmout (Laghouat). The chemical parameters studied are pH, cation exchange capacity (CEC Cmol⁺/kg), total calcareous (CaCO₃%), salinity (EC ds m⁻¹), total nitrogen (Nt%), nitrogen mineral (Nm mg/kg), exchangeable phosphorus (P) mg/kg, and exchangeable potassium (K) mg/kg. The results showed that the soils of this arid zone have an alkaline pH, CEC relatively medium (it does not exceed 15 Cmol⁺/kg), and calcareous soil; EC is from low to medium and sometimes high. The soils are poor in total and mineral nitrogen, and the exchangeable phosphorus contents are high, which could be due to phosphate fertilizer, and the exchangeable potassium has low to medium values. These soils require rectification fertilization for nitrogen and potassium and maintenance fertilization for phosphorus. With the geographic information system (GIS), we have developed different thematic maps based on the analytical results obtained. The thematic maps obtained allow us to manage a fertilization plan to improve the chemical fertility of these soils and increase agricultural production in the study area.

The precipitation of an insulating layer of scaling on the walls of the water distribution pipes has serious technical and economic consequences. Various methods were used to prevent the scale formation in water such as the chemical methods in which the germination of the CaCO₃ crystals is blocked using the inhibitor. In recent years, a few studies have been focused on the aspects of the surface scaling so that the different mechanisms were proposed to explain the differences between the scaling precipitation in bulk solution and scale deposition at the surface. The water distribution of some Algerian town resulting from the drilling water is supersaturated with respect to calcium carbonate. This causes reducing heat transfer in heat exchanger systems, limiting the efficiency of these devices (valves and taps) by decreasing the flow rate in the pipes; this phenomenon is more prevalent at high heating temperature. In this book chapter, we aim to give an overview of the different antiscaling properties in hard water. We also provide the inhibitors used and the researches done on Algerian water.

The present situation in Algeria’s water resources is framed by problems related to water sustainability. Natural resources are at the core of Algeria’s sustainable development and are critical to socioeconomic growth. This chapter captures the assessment of surface and groundwater resources in Algeria (in terms of findings and suggestions) and provides ideas extracted from the volume cases. In addition, some updated findings from a few recently published research works related to the water resources covered themes are presented. This chapter offers a number of suggestions to protect the resources for the current issues experienced by Algeria.