Water Resources: Tunisia Faces Growing Constraints

Tunisia’s water question is no longer confined to environmental or public-health concerns. As resources become scarcer and infrastructure faces growing pressure, water is emerging as a major economic, social and strategic challenge for the country.

Mohamed Ikbal Souissi, an expert in organic farming and water footprint analysis, argues that water could become one of the main forces shaping Tunisia’s future development model. Rethinking the country’s relationship with water, he says, is both a necessity and an opportunity for transformation.

The article places today’s debate in a much longer history. Long before modern laboratories, treatment plants and water technologies, major civilizations understood that water was not an ordinary resource. It shaped public health, agriculture, urban development, and the survival and prosperity of societies.

Hippocrates, in his famous treatise on air, water and places, already urged people to examine water’s origin, surroundings and characteristics before drinking it. That insight still applies, the article argues, because water quality remains closely tied to quality of life, economic performance and social stability.

Humanity’s relationship with water has since changed from reliance on springs, wells and fountains to complex distribution networks and mass consumption of bottled water. Bottles have met new needs linked to mobility, distribution and consumption, but they have also helped establish an economy built around disposability. A single-use plastic bottle can appear to be an ordinary daily purchase, yet it represents a wider chain of production and consumption.