Oases in southern Tunisia: The end or the renewal of a clever human invention?

Abstract

Today, we do not know how to define oases or how to classify them due to the diversity of their situations and changing routes on which they are situated. We may eventually keep this name for the small islands of greenery now irrigated by wells. They may have lost their trees, and may have been cut off from their network of exchange, or even been abandoned by farmers who have become urban dwellers. Do the new features of these spaces completely transform the age-old notion of oasis, even if the oasis landscape remains? Is then the notion of an oasis only linked to its superficial image? In looking for a more modern and dynamic definition of these spaces, it is relevant to propose new typologies. Once we assume that future oases will never look like they did in the past, this may imply not just an evolution of the term, but its demise.