Abstract
Due to overexploitation, anthropogenic pollution, and climatic change during the Anthropocene and Great Acceleration, Tunisia has already witnessed a severe water crisis. Since they are the natural outlets of their hydrological and hydrogeological basins, wetlands are candidates to obviously display the radical change in water cycles related to anthropogenic activities. This chapter provides efficient methods to investigate water cycle modifications through the study of the water budgets within wetlands (Sidi El Hani Discharge Playa, Eastern Tunisia was taken as example). As concrete manifestation of this change, the dryness of in water springs or the decrease of their flows are concrete indicators of a real water crisis in Tunisia. In addition, salt consumption leads to a decreasing salinization.
TopMethods
Two strategies were followed in the study of the groundwater contribution in Sidi El Hani discharge playa to propose a model relating Sidi El Hani discharge playa and the surrounding aquifers during the Anthropocene and Great Acceleration (e.g., Kairouan aquifer): (1) a hydrological and hydrogeological approach; (2) a geochemical approach. The first was meant to be applied within the discharge playa itself or within its hydrogeological watershed by selecting between the following different hydrological and hydrogeological methods: the field oriented approach, the numerical simulation and the balance technique. The second recognized, on the basis of the first strategy, that Sidi El Hani discharge playa is commanded mainly by its hydrogeological basin rather than its hydrological watershed; and it studied the geochemistry of the converging water. In order to take aside the hydrological contribution, this study was meant to be in some drills outside the discharge playa.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Spring: A natural discharge point of subterranean water at the surface of the ground or directly into the bed of a stream, lake, or sea.
Climate Change: A climate transformation of global dimension in which there are changes in the ordinary climate of the planet.
Anthropocene: A new geological epoch proposed by the scientific community for the period were significant.
Great Acceleration: Records the dramatic, continuous, and roughly change in the human activity.
Wetlands: Humid zones in which water is permanently or temporally present either by covering soil or incorporating within the near surface of the soil. human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems has become obvious.
Water Table: The upper level of the subsurface in which the soil or rocks are permanently saturated with water.
Global Warming: The phenomenon of increasing average air temperatures near the surface of Earth over the past one to two centuries.