Tunisia to initiate experiment to reduce water evaporation, Agriculture Minister tells Parliament

Tunis: Tunisia plans to start an experiment aimed at reducing water evaporation in one of the country's small lakes, said Minister of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries Abdelmonem Belati at a plenary session of the Assembly of People's Representatives. This phenomenon is exacerbated by rising temperatures, he added.Tunisia was not expecting to feel the impact of climate change so rapidly. Water reserves in all dams do not exceed 29% of their capacity which is alarming, especially that Tunisia experiences a daily evaporation of about 700,000 cubic metres of water, the minister said as he answered a question by MP Youssef Toumi."The Ministry of Agriculture is working to mitigate evaportion-induced water loss in dams by exploring various technical solutions," he further said.The ministry is seeking to create a committee tasked with cloud seeding, Belaati said. Several countries had successfully implemented this operation to meet their surface water needs.Tunisia is striving to bolster its water r esources through the construction of six new dams and the creation of new desalination plants, including the one in Sfax, which will soon be operational.This plant will supply the region with 100,000 cubic metres/day.The minister said his department has installed the necessary equipment to integrate a number of abandoned wells into potable water supply network.Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse