Groundwater resources in semi-arid areas and especially in the Mediterranean face a growing demand for irrigated agriculture and, to a lesser extent, for domestic uses. Consequently, groundwater reserves are affected and water-table drops are widely observed. This leads to strong constraints on groundwater access for farmers, while managers worry about the future evolution of the water resources. A common problem for building proper groundwater management plans is the difficulty in assessing individual groundwater withdrawals at regional scale. Predicting future trends of these groundwater withdrawals is even more challenging. The basic question is how to assess the water budget variables and their evolution when they are deeply linked to human activities, themselves driven by countless factors (access to natural resources, public policies, market, etc.). This study provides some possible answers by focusing on the assessment of groundwater withdrawals for irrigated agriculture at three sites in North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria). Efforts were made to understand the different features that influence irrigation practices, and an adaptive user-oriented methodology was used to monitor groundwater withdrawals. For each site, different key factors affecting the regional groundwater abstraction and its past evolution were identified by involving farmers' knowledge. Factors such as farmer access to land and groundwater or development of public infrastructures (electrical distribution network) are crucial to decode the results of well inventories and assess the regional groundwater abstraction and its future trend. This leads one to look with caution at the number of wells cited in the literature, which could be oversimplified. (Résumé d'auteur
Core Ideas OMERE is a Mediterranean observatory of two farmed catchments in Tunisia and France. Water, contaminant, and erosion fluxes are monitored from plot to catchment scales. Soils and land use in relation with agriculture are surveyed. Scientific results concern elementary processes and integrated catchment functioning. Models were conceived for evaluation of land use and agricultural management scenarios. To account for the diversity of agricultural and ecosystem situations in hilly Mediterranean areas, the agro‐hydrological observatory OMERE (Observatoire Méditerranéen de l'Environnement Rural et de l'Eau) monitors two farmed catchments—one in northern Tunisia and the other in southern France. Mediterranean regions are typified by a highly variable climate, with an alternation of long droughts and intense storms, and by a strong heterogeneity of soil properties, due to a combination of climate, relief, parent materials, sparse vegetation, intense land use, man‐made infrastructure (ditches, terraces, etc.), and agricultural activities. In this context, OMERE aims to document the impacts of agricultural and land management on mass fluxes in Mediterranean farmed headwater catchments. The observation strategy is motivated by monitoring water, sediment, and contaminant fluxes and hydrologic and climatic variables at different spatial scales from cultivated plots and landscape elements to the catchment scale. These measurements have been performed at a fine time resolution over a long‐term scale and by surveying land use, agricultural practices, and soil surface characteristics. The long‐term observation strategy intends to support integrative multidisciplinary research for elucidating the conditions that improve soil and water management and delivery of ecosystem services in a Mediterranean rainfed cultivated context. The observatory has led to scientific insights regarding three scientific objectives: (i) to better understand the fluxes of water, erosion, and contaminants, especially pesticides, and of their natural and anthropogenic drivers on short‐ and long‐term scales; (ii) to analyze the aggregate effects of farming and land management on mass fluxes across scales, from plot to catchment or landscape scales; and (iii) to derive new scenarios for sustainable agricultural management and improved delivery of ecosystem services.
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