Pressure on oasians lands: a water and land resources challenge

For thousands of years man has explored and shaped the extreme territories to settle there. It is to the rigorous structuring of natural resources in arid zones that oases owe their existence. For centuries they have been places of social, economic and agricultural exchanges and have played an important role in the links between the African, European and Asian continents. By their very essence, oases are territories in which land and water resources are not only fundamental, but are also places where strong ingenuity has made it possible to valorize and limit pressure of these resources. Today, oases are endangered by numerous crises that threaten their survival whereas they have a key role against the existing global crisis. It is essential to recognize their true value and strengthen them !!

Oasis water and lands are under pressure: to confront, we must accompany them!Oases are agroecosystems in which whole communities live; both places of life and production based on a rational use of water and land resources. But this simple equation is questioned by an increasing of oases pressure conditions :

• Global warming and climate-related events: oases benefit from a low and irregular rainfall with an average of less than 300 mm. Coupled with global warming and more and more frequent droughts, oases are undergoing an exacerbation of desertification: soil degradation, springs’ drying up, drawdown of groundwater and competition for water supply are also causing a decrease in local agricultural production despite a large population still depending on it.
• Political factors: oases have been little considered by politicians or have been the subject of unfavorable measures so far: the implementation of privatization and land reclamation reforms, agricultural extensions, urbanization, the increasing industrial activities, the monoculture of the date palm’s development: it has become quite difficult to be a farmer in oasis and to have access to water to irrigate its plot. How to protect oases if the States themselves do not give the appropriate consideration?