When she went back to her home province of Al-Qairawan, Fathia Al-Hamadi, a young engineer who works for the Agriculture Development was surprised to see the harsh circumstances in Ein Bomra village, where her family lives.

She watched lines of women from her villages, as they carried containers of stagnant water held on their shoulders. She also saw other women trying to fetch water from a well that had dried out months ago.

The dam crisis

When she went back to her home province of Al-Qairawan, Fathia Al-Hamadi, a young engineer who works for the Agriculture Development was surprised to see the harsh circumstances in Ein Bomra village, where her family lives.

She watched lines of women from her villages, as they carried containers of stagnant water held on their shoulders. She also saw other women trying to fetch water from a well that had dried out months ago.

The dam crisis

Nabhana Dam, the largest dam in the region and its main source of water, has failed to protect the nearby areas from drought. Both the lack of rainfall and increasing consumption have begun to deplete the water storages and made the suffering of residents more acute.

Because of the high consumption, against the will and interest of the regions’ farmers, authorities closed Nabhana Dam. Without water, numerous lemon, olive and other kinds of trees may die.

Despite Al-Hamadi’s work with international development organizations as an irrigation expert, it made little difference in the face of the drought that had swept most of the agricultural lands in her village and other areas in the country.

Before Nabhana Dam, the government had closed Al-Hawareb Dam, which stores 95 million cubic meters of water. Today, the dam is closed until it is linked to Sidi Saad Dam in Qairawan, which is to be refilled.

The water crisis has also reached the province of Beja, in the northwest, which is considered to have the most amount of rainfall – Beja has three dams. Today however, it is threatened with drought, and it has recently witnessed popular protests demanding drinking water.

The neighboring province of Jandouba has seven dams and thirteen lakes that had caused many floods, the last of which was in the winter of 2015. Only the dams in the province stored 184 cubic meters of water in the last year. This year, it also suffers from drought because the water storage in the dams has declined significantly.

Water cuts

In response to this dire situation, the governmental water directorate implemented austerity measures. The directorate is increasingly sending water cut orders to all parts of the country including the coastline cities. Most of these cities depend on the middle and northern provinces for their water supply.

In response to these measures, thousands of Tunisian citizens complained to the Tunisian Observatory for Water (NGO), who warned the government against the cuts and argued that the right to water is protected by the constitution.

The Observatory also accused the Water Directorate of evading its responsibility of providing drinking water for the people and misusing the water resources. The Observatory says that the Directorate is responsible for the drought that has swept the coastal and southern cities and countryside.

On the other side, Rashid Khanfar, the Head of the General Directorate for Water Resource in the Ministry of Agriculture, said the drought broke because of the decreasing rainfall and the increasing water consumption, which has reduced the water storage in the dams this year.

Government officials warned against the excessive expansion of irrigated farm lands in regions that suffer short water storages. He also warned against the random and unlicensed drilling.

 Alternative solutions

Many irrigation experts confirmed that the drought will only reduce water storages behind the dams, which will lead to more cuts in drinking water throughout the whole country.

Government officials also showed concern about the issue, yet they all hope that a potential large rainfall could solve the problem. However, they have all confirmed that the country shall resort to a host solutions to water scarcity like erecting desalination programs in the south.