The Coordination Unit of the Consultation Mechanism of the North Westen Sahara Aquifer System (SASS) is organizing the 12th session of its Permanent Technical Committee in Tunis.
In this context, it will present the balance sheet of its activities, as well as its financial statements as at 30 September 2018. On this occasion, the participants will also examine two reports produced by the GWP-Med, relating to (1) the analysis of the needs in cross-border cooperation, and (2) the description of options for improving cross-border cooperation.
Sponsored by GWP-Med, this workshop brings together about 15 participants representing the three countries sharing the aquifer system of the northern Sahara (Algeria, Tunisia, Libya), as well as the representatives of the OSS and the Global Water Partnership ( GWP-Med). The Consultation Mechanism of the North Western Sahara Aquifer System (SASS, shared by Algeria, Libya and Tunisia), created in 2006, with a Technical Unit based at OSS, to support and strengthen cooperation between the three countries.
It is one of the few existing groundwater management mechanisms in the world. Its program includes several joint scientific and technical activities, mainly updating the database, setting up the aquifer monitoring network and defining data exchange protocols between the three countries.
The North Western Sahara Aquifer System (SASS), an aquifer covering an area of 1 million km2, is an immense reservoir of water for the development of the region, both for domestic and agricultural purposes. In recent decades, it has experienced intense exploitation (from 500 million m3 per year in 1950 to more than 3 billion m3 per year today), but also a deterioration in the quality of its waters, and a significant decline in level of water tables.