水文地質学および水文工学ジャーナル

Comprehensively Management of Water Resources in Tunisia with the Innovation Connecting Facility Rehabilitation and Material Development

Mitsuteru Irie and Jamila Tarhouni

With the advance of global warming and desertification, securing stable water resources is an important issue in Tunisia. However, surface water resources have been gradually reducing due to sedimentation. However, dredging, the simplest countermeasure against sedimentation has not been performed due to high cost.

Southern Tunisia has a low population density but no water supply network. Local water wells are precious water resources but many suffer from fluoride contamination. Worldwide, the population experiencing fluoride contamination in drinking water is at least 100 million.

We offer a solution to both of these issues related to water supply. We are developing a fluoride remover made from the sediment. The required amount of the media in fluoride removers was calculated by considering the volume of drinking water per capita. Processing costs of each component were estimated based on those for ceramics bricks in Tunisia. The selling price of the fluoride remover was assumed using former examples of water purification projects.

The profit from selling the fluoride remover to 100 million, which represents the numbers of people experiencing fluoride contamination in groundwater worldwide, can cover 75 % of the dredging cost of reservoirs in Tunisia.