Watershed and Water Management System in Algeria

Abstract

Water resources in Algeria are limited, vulnerable and unequallydistributed. These resources have in addition undergone during the twolast decades the harmful effects of drought, pollution, and unpropermanagement. The water potentialities in Algeria are estimated overall at19 billion cubic meters per year (correspondent with approximately600m(3)/inhabitant/year). Thus Algeria is categorized as one of thecountries low in water resources taking into consideration the thresholdof scarcity established by the World Bank at 1,000m(3)/inhabitant/year).In addition the history of water management in Algeria sinceindependence is one of a proliferation of structures and texts in chargeof hydrology matters. It was necessary to wait until the 1990s, afternational bases of water in 1996, when there emerged a realization of theneed for organizing the management of water resources in acomprehensive, coherent, and rational way by the adoption of a newpolicy of water.A new water policy based on the principles of unifying the resource, ofmanagement integrated on a catchment area scale, of concerted management- economic and environmental - was established in 1996.This report is organized around the following areas:Fundamental elements of the current assumption of responsibility forwater management in Algeria (the water resources and the committedprocess of institutional recasting of the framework: organization,administration, financing and achievements)Overall appreciation of the possibilities for improvement of managementby evaluating the impacts of the management structurePossibilities for improvement of the new water policy