The North-West Sahara Aquifer System programme supports coordinated management of shared groundwater resources across Algeria, Libya and Tunisia. The permanent consultation mechanism provides information exchange, stakeholder dialogue and joint approaches to sustainable water use. The programme is mature institutional infrastructure and should not be represented by a conventional construction stage.
<p>The NWAS is one of the major North African transboundary groundwater basins shared by three North African countries (i.e. i.e. Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia) which covers an area of more than one million square kilometres. The NWSAS can be categorised as a multi-layered system of aquifers which embodies a huge stock of non-renewable groundwater. </p>
<p>The NWSAS project"'s objectives are the concerted management of the shared water resources and the preservation of the quality of water and soil. The exploitation of this resource has risen steeply, causing decline of the aquifer artesian pressure, groundwater salinisation, and loss of natural oases. Such impacts could lead to the total depletion of the non-renewable resource. </p>