World Water Day - 22 March 2007

Mediterranean

The logo of WADI project is an idealised picture of a landscape with lagoon in North Africa, summarising the objective “Good quality water for everybody”: women and children are in the foreground sharing water with natural elements of the ecosystem, plants and animals, while a urban development can be seen in the background. © Felicita Scapini

The eastern and southern part of the Mediterranean is among the most water-stressed regions of the world and does not have sufficient water to be self-sufficient in all dimensions of water use, including agriculture. However, over millennia societies in this part of the world have developed a culture of ingenuous water management to satisfy human needs. It were the Arabs introducing Europe to irrigated agriculture, e.g. in southern Spain. Today, intelligent use of food trade brings in 'virtual water' to make up for structural deficits in the face of a still rapidly growing population and hundreds of millions of tourists attracted to the natural and cultural beauty of the countries and their people in the Mediterranean Basin. Water efficiency ("more crop per drop" and "more jobs per drop") is also receiving more attention, but requires complicated adjustments in social and labour organisation. This is always a bigger challenge than just 'a little technology transfer'.

Unsurprisingly, mutually beneficial international scientific cooperation between Europe and Mediterranean Partner Countries has focused strongly on water policies and integrated management over the years.

WADI (WAter Demand Integration) - “Sustainable management of Mediterranean fresh and transitional water bodies: a socioeconomic and environmental analysis of changes and trends to enhance and sustain stakeholders benefits” (INCO-CT2005-015226) is among the last generation of projects addressing these challenges in a partnership mode. The focus is on three Southern Mediterranean countries, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt and a comparison with situations in Italy and southern Spain.

Fishermen houses at the Lake Maryuit outlet (Egypt): a contrasting reality, showing a struggle for ground and good quality water. © Felicita Scapini

Management decisions of fresh water resources in the Mediterranean region today are generally driven by the urgency of relatively recent changes in the human and natural contexts. Also, the environmental quality of fresh water bodies in coastal areas, as well as transitional waters, are critical, especially when these are located near large cities or other concentrations of people, as they would be particularly at risk of negative impacts, both natural and anthropogenic. However, some types of water management measures may affect ecosystem viability and the very production of resources. That may create a vicious circle of negative effects on human populations, jeopardise sustained economic growth and development. Moreover big infrastructure interventions and other structural measures may neglect impacts at the local context, which is most sensitive and resulting in conflicts between different groups in society. To prevent the multiplication of such conditions scientific research can help develop more integrated approaches to the management of freshwater resources, including transitional waters.

The objective of the WADI project can be summarized in the Millennium Development Goal “good quality water for everybody”, with special consideration of the economically and politically weak or under-represented social groups, such as rural women and children, as well as the natural ecosystems.

The WADI project mobilises experts of different disciplines (socio-economy, geography and ecology) and engages with social groups at different levels, local, regional and national. The collaboration focuses on real problems arising from the needs and perceptions of the various groups concerned. A number of case-studies in Mediterranean coastal areas, representative of different developments, are analysed through an ecosystem approach, aiming at identifying key issues and developing new scenarios to mitigate existing conflicts for water uses.

Fishing boats on Lake Maryuit (Egypt): low quality water and poor fish stocks. © Felicita Scapini

The first phase of the WADI approach was focused on “listening to stakeholders' needs and perceptions”. Several meetings were organised at the study sites, inviting local people, water managers, regional and national decision-makers around the same table with the international teams participating in the project. Stakeholders presented their problems and strategies to solve them, identified needs and existing conflicts for water and other natural resources. The following issues were highlighted in the different case-studies, which are driving the next ongoing phases of the project.

Historical and recent developments have influenced the context of the study area in semi-arid northern Morocco, the Laou River Basin. The area hosts a numerous population, both rural and urban. Different developments have affected the low plain and the mountain areas. While not suffering for direct water scarcity, the rural population has difficult access to social facilities due to a lack of infrastructures.

WADI researchers are analysing the socio-economic relationships with special focus on women's needs and perceptions, as they have the burden of running the household in an area where young men tend to migrate to the cities or abroad. Researchers are exploring in-depth the natural value of the area to provide inputs for the development of a rural, ecologically sustainable tourism, and foster a balanced relationship between people and the environment. The cultural value of traditional practices is taken into account, as a rapid development might cause an irreversible loss of the natural and cultural heritage that has allowed a sustainable use of natural resources up to now.

The study area in northern Tunisia, the Oued Mejerda Basin and Ghar El Melh Lagoon, is extremely complex, affected both by droughts and floods. The water of the river supplies dams and canals to irrigate other regions of the country and the development of the area is critical in relation to several aspects.

The old port at Ghar El Melh Lagoon (Tunisia) is almost abandoned due to a lack of management of the lagoon outlet, currently filled with sand. © Felicita Scapini

Traditional agriculture practices are progressively abandoned in favour of monocultures using chemicals. However, these chemicals cause pollution, ever-thirsty irrigation schemes diminish water supplies downstream; traditional fishery is ceding the space to urbanisation linked to coastal tourism. The fault lines are multiple:

• Coastal management is in conflict with agriculture at the border areas,
• Environmental protection is in conflict with the development of both the tourism and agriculture.

In this transitional development, an integrated management of water and environment is urgently needed to foster an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable development. The meetings organised by WADI project succeeded in gathering various interest groups around the same table, encouraging exchanges of information as a first step towards collaboration between scientists, managers, decision-makers and representatives of the local population.

In the Mediterranean coastal zone of Egypt, Lake Maryuit (bordering the city of Alexandria) represents an economical and ecologically important water body for fishery, irrigation and flood control of the Nile River delta. The lake sustains about five thousand fishermen families, but the recent industrial development of the city, decreasing water supply from the Nile River, increasing irrigation and use of space for agriculture, have caused a decrease of fish stock and a deterioration of its quality. Despite a general development of the area, the local fishermen are becoming poorer, and a vicious circle has started of decreasing environmental quality and increasing poverty. The project WADI seeks to provide scientifically sound inputs for an ecologically sustainable management of this beautiful rural area located in the surrounding of a historical city, under economic growth.

Women association at Ghar El Melh (Tunisia): waiting for new scenarios. © Felicita Scapini

In south-eastern Spain, the El Hondo Lagoon (provinces of Alicante and Elche) is an artificial reservoir for irrigation, later transformed into a natural reserve of high ecological value (bird biodiversity). This water body suffers for decreasing water supply and consequent deterioration of water quality, making its use critical for agriculture. The development of the coastal area into mass-tourism resorts has lowered the attention of decision makers with respect to agriculture and the traditional social context. A loss of traditional practices, particularly those related to irrigation has been documented (through hydraulic archaeology), as well as a deterioration of the historical landscapes. The project WADI has enhanced local awareness on the historical, social and natural values under threat from poor water management. Under the umbrella of WADI, discussions were conducted for the first time around one table between representative of the associations of farmers and irrigators and environmental managers.

In southern Tuscany (Italy), the low plain of the River Ombrone was for centuries an unhealthy marshland. This favoured the conservation of a typical Mediterranean landscape with high biodiversity, which was recognised through the institution of a coastal natural park thirty years ago, including both agricultural land and natural landscapes. Land reclamation was carried out in the 1920s and land was distributed to farmers coming from northern Italy, who remained established in the area to today. The recent developments of extensive agriculture in the plain and of bathing tourism along the coast have caused a deterioration of water supply and consequent conflicts between the various groups. Recent climatic change (irregular rainfall causing droughts or floods) and a general retreat of the coastline at the river mouth, have provoked saltwater intrusion in the coastal aquifer as well as a concentration of heavy metals and other pollutants, posing urgent problems to crop irrigation and drinking water supply. An integrated water management is urgently needed in the area. It could take advantage of the inputs generated by scientific research in the framework of WADI. Research is addressing irrigation practices to adapt them to the salinity of soils, and assessing the ecological impacts of coastal engineering aimed at stabilising the coastline, but threatening the unique natural coastal ecosystems.

Girls at a well in the Oued Laou watershed (Morocco): curiosity is initiating confidence. © Felicita Scapini

As a whole, the WADI project has adopted an open approach, putting emphasis on exchange with interest groups at different levels, to foster a focused scientific research to mitigate and possibly help solve real key problems in complex systems suffering for water scarcity and/or poor management. The focal sites were chosen in areas at different stages of development, to allow mutual learning from a range of bad and good experiences. The project stresses the natural and cultural traditional values around the Mediterranean and the links between people and their environment, which are under threat of loss, if not outright loss in some areas.

The conflicts studied in each area appear already entrenched. A necessary step was to encourage the various stakeholders to talk to each other and listen to different points of view, taking into account also the needs of others. International researchers have proved a role of facilitators, and this is an initial outcome of the first phase of the WADI project.

Want to read more? Visit the project web site: http://www.wadi.unifi.it.

The project coordinator is Prof. Felicita Scapini, University of Florence, Italy, scapini@dbag.unifi.it