The Tunisian authorities proceeded, Monday, May 7, to a partial discharge from the Mellegue dam, in the governorate of KEF, in order to anticipate an important rise in waters from Algerian territory.
This preventive measurement comes following the total filling of the Algerian dam of Oued Mellegue, which began to release its waters to Tunisian territory via wadi of the same name.
The discharge aims to avoid any risk of overflow at the Tunisian dam in Mellegue, which is one of the essential links in the national hydraulic network. The liberated waters then continue their course towards the Sidi Salem dam, located in the governorate of Béja, considered one of the largest and strategic tanks in the country.
The services of the Ministry of Agriculture, Hydraulic Resources and Fisheries have assured that all precautions are taken to ensure the safety of infrastructure and inhabited areas downstream, while maximizing the valuation of water resources in a context of climate pressure.
According to the data communicated by the Tunisian Observatory of the Weather and the Climate, new disturbances are expected during the second half of May, which could accentuate the flow of the Mellegue wadi. Specialists do not exclude a scenario similar to that observed between May and June 2023, when large volumes of water had been recorded, requiring increased vigilance.
The technical exchanges between Tunisia and Algeria have intensified in recent days, in order to ensure real -time monitoring of water levels and coordinate the releases in the two countries. This joint management is part of a logic of cross -border water cooperation, faced with climatic hazards increasingly frequent in the region.
In addition to the security issues, controlling these flows represents a crucial lever for Tunisian agriculture, which remains strongly dependent on the availability of irrigation water, as well as for the supply of drinking water from several rural and urban areas.
