Bennour et al. (2026) Increasing Irrigated Agriculture Area and Its Related Water Consumption Set Djorf Aquifer at Risk of Water Quantity Depletion

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Identification

• Journal: Remote Sensing
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-02-27
• Authors: Ali Bennour, Nabil Bachagha, Mohamed Atawa, Abdessattar Hamdi, Mohamed Ouessar
• DOI: 10.3390/rs18050708

Research Groups

[Not explicitly mentioned in the provided text.]

Short Summary

This study investigates the relationship between expanding irrigated agriculture and groundwater level dynamics in the Djorf aquifer, southeastern Tunisia. It found that a significant expansion of irrigated cropland led to substantial reductions in groundwater levels, particularly a rapid decrease after 2015.

Objective

• To assess the impact of irrigated agriculture on the water-level dynamics of the Djorf aquifer in the semi-arid coastal region of southeastern Tunisia.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Djorf coastal area, southeastern Tunisia, including specific piezometric well locations (Tajerjemet, Garaat Tyour, Henchir Arrassa).
• Temporal Scale: 2005 to 2025, with analyses for 2005-2015 and 2015-2025 periods.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Random Forest Model (RFM) for supervised classification of irrigated areas.
• Data sources: Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing imagery, machine learning techniques, ground-truth Global Positioning System (GPS) data, and piezometric well measurements.

Main Results

• The Random Forest Model achieved high performance in detecting irrigated areas, with an overall accuracy of 0.99 and kappa values ranging from 0.72 to 0.94 between 2005 and 2025.
• Irrigated agricultural area in the Djorf aquifer expanded significantly: from approximately 400 hectares (ha) in 2005 to 500 ha in 2015, and further to 1600 ha in 2025.
• This expansion led to substantial groundwater level reductions:
  • Tajerjemet well (southern): decreased by 1.5 meters (m) from 2005 to 2015, and by 5 m from 2015 to 2025.
  • Garaat Tyour well (northern): remained unchanged from 2005 to 2015, but decreased by 3 m from 2015 to 2025.
  • Henchir Arrassa well (center): decreased by 1.5 m from 2005 to 2015, and by approximately 9 m from 2015 to 2025.
• The significant drop in groundwater levels, particularly from 2015 to 2025, is directly attributed to the substantial expansion of irrigated agriculture, despite existing legal restrictions on water well drilling.

Contributions

• Provides a quantitative assessment of the direct link between the expansion of irrigated agriculture and groundwater depletion in a semi-arid coastal aquifer using an integrated GIS, remote sensing, and machine learning approach.
• Offers high-accuracy mapping of irrigated areas over two decades, demonstrating the scale of agricultural expansion.
• Highlights the alarming rate of groundwater degradation in the Djorf aquifer, especially in the last decade, underscoring the ineffectiveness of current protective measures and the urgent need for intervention.

Funding

[Not explicitly mentioned in the provided text.]

Citation

@article{Bennour2026Increasing,
  author = {Bennour, Ali and Bachagha, Nabil and Atawa, Mohamed and Hamdi, Abdessattar and Ouessar, Mohamed},
  title = {Increasing Irrigated Agriculture Area and Its Related Water Consumption Set Djorf Aquifer at Risk of Water Quantity Depletion},
  journal = {Remote Sensing},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.3390/rs18050708},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18050708}
}