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Paving the way for groundwater management: Transforming information for crafting management rules
Author(s) -
Hammani Ali,
Hartani Tarik,
Kuper Marcel,
Imache Amar
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
irrigation and drainage
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.421
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1531-0361
pISSN - 1531-0353
DOI - 10.1002/ird.521
Subject(s) - groundwater , water resource management , sustainability , agriculture , resource (disambiguation) , water resources , irrigation , business , water scarcity , groundwater resources , environmental planning , scarcity , farm water , environmental resource management , environmental science , aquifer , water conservation , geography , computer science , engineering , economics , ecology , computer network , geotechnical engineering , archaeology , microeconomics , biology
In many countries, farmers are turning to groundwater to make up for surface water scarcity and to deal with increasing water demand, even inside large‐scale irrigation schemes. In many situations, this leads to the mining of groundwater resources, which in turn threatens the sustainability of the farms that depend on this resource. The purpose of this study was to find ways to provide the necessary information to stakeholders to enable them to construct rules for sustainable groundwater management. The dynamics of water resources and water use practices were analysed and management indicators were designed for two irrigation schemes in North Africa: Tadla (Morocco) and Mitidja West (Algeria). The results showed, firstly, that available groundwater has decreased; secondly, that farming systems depend to an increasing extent on groundwater resources, and thirdly, that individual and collective access to groundwater depends on informal arrangements. We developed and tested a platform for dialogue for water management focused on exploring plausible scenarios of agricultural development in relation to the use of groundwater. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.