Climate change and water resources management of Oran region

Abstract

Our work aims to contribute to the literature on the prospective study of the water balance in the Oran region, a major southern Mediterranean metropolis, by considering the socioeconomic dimension of this region and the dynamic of its climate change through 2011–2030. These two dimensions are important for the analysis of future changes in water stress in the region because they affect both the demand and the supply of the water resources. Unlike other studies, our methodological approach is based on an explicit modeling of the socioeconomic evolution in the region as well as of the dynamic of climate change. For this, we used a time-series modeling framework to predict the effects of change in climate. In addition to the assessment of the effects of the socioeconomic and climate changes on the water balance of the region. Our results, based on simulations using the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) software, show that the current decoupling between the drinking sector from that of irrigation in the Oran region is not sustainable. Climate change will exacerbate this vulnerability. Only by integrating these two sectors, through a reuse of wastewater, can we consider the irrigation issue from a perspective of long-term sustainability in the region.