The water reaches the surface boiling, at around 80 degrees, then is conveyed into a coil which cools it making it available for irrigation. Talking about one of the projects that the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (Aics) is carrying out in southwestern Tunisia, Remo Zulli does not hide his satisfaction for a work which, once completed, will improve the availability of water for peasants and consequently also their income. More water means greater production, especially of dates, the main export product of this area. But it also means being able to diversify.
We are in the Tozeur area, however far from the tourist routes that have made this Tunisian city famous, also immortalized in a famous song by Franco Battiato (precisely “The trains of Tozeur”), and the project is that of integrated rural development in the delegations of Hezoua and Tamerza, followed by Zulli. “Integrated rural development – explains Zulli to InfoAfrica – means that we work in the agricultural sector but also in other areas, such as for example the improvement of the living conditions of local populations, above all by trying to provide alternative sources of income, in addition to the production of date”. One of the projects carried out by the Italian Cooperation – and now close to being inaugurated – is the rehabilitation of a geothermal water cooling system to be used for crop irrigation. It was a highly ruined structure, with significant loss of fossil water, coming from a source about 2.4 kilometers deep, with a temperature at the outlet of about 80 degrees. “We are almost at the end of the works, delayed by Covid and the lack of materials – Zulli continues – but we are here now”.
The water cooled by this system will benefit the population living in these oases. “Here in the area – continues Zulli – you can find two types of oases. The oases near the main cities – such as Nefta, Tozeur, Tamerza – are of the ancestral type, born around natural springs that were found along the caravan routes. In modern times, these oases have become important sources of income thanks to the date palm which here in southern Tunisia is one of the main supply chains together with breeding”. In more recent times, the government has invested in what are called irrigation perimeters or modern oases. “These – concludes Zulli – are oases with intensive cultivation of date palms created thanks to the fossil water found deeper down”. Where not only dates are produced. “An oasis generally has three levels: the highest layer is occupied by the date palm, the intermediate one by other fruit plants (pomegranate, oranges), and the lowest layer, at the base of the palm, serves production of forage, medicinal plants, vegetables”. Strokes of green in the Sahara that tries to advance and that man tries to block and make livable. [Da Redazione InfoAfrica]
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