Journal of Water and Land Development

Abstract

The pressure on the use of water and climate change has caused a decreased availability of water resources in semi-arid areas in the last decades. The Setif Province is one of the semi-arid zones of Algeria as it receives an average less than 400 mm•year -1 . The question of the evolution of demographic pressures and their impacts on water resources arise. By applying WEAP software (water evaluation and planning), the aim is to develop a model of water resources management and its utilization, assess the proportion of the resource-needs balance and analyse the future situation of water according to different scenarios. This approach allows to identify the most vulnerable sites to climatic and anthropogenic pressures. The estimation of the needs for drinking water and wastewater in the Setif Province has shown that these needs increase over time and happening when the offer is not able to cover the demand in a suitable way. It is acknowledged that there is a poor exploitation of water resources including underground resources, which translates into unmet demand in all sites of demand.