Abstract
Water scarcity and management of this problem are increasingly acknowledged in development policies as well as in adaptation and migration discourse. In South Mediterranean countries, insufficient water supplies in oases are the biggest limitation on yields of sufficient quantity and quality and increase in arable land, in short, the development of agriculture. Insufficient income from agriculture, when it is the main source of revenue, can push people to migrate. However, migration does not have to be the measure of last resort. Proper adaption to this limitation, including proactive migration, can reduce forced movements from this region in the future. The main aim of this paper is to identify and analyse household strategies, including migration, to cope with and adapt to the impact of environmental changes and limitations on agricultural development in the South Mediterranean. This paper is based on field research carried out in the El Faouar oasis area in Tunisia using a mixed-method approach. The results show that the inhabitants of El Faouar must cope with unforeseen crop destruction limiting their daily expenses by selling livestock or, in years of drought, migrating to look for additional sources of income. The results also show that local households try to increase their resistance to climate change, environmental limitations, and permanent migration by developing their agricultural capacity, provided they have additional resources from such endeavours as work outside El Faouar or remittances. Moreover, migration has become part of a wider process of socio-economic transformation in which people leave in order to cope with or adapt to environmental changes.
Highlights
It is challenging to estimate the specific scale and scope of impacts related to environmental change, water scarcity and the depletion of resources add to the already increasing levels and complexity of population mobility (Christian Aid, 2007; Ionesco, Mokhnacheva, & Gemenne, 2016)
As North African countries lie in an area of low rainfall, the most serious problems are caused by climate change, water scarcity, and drought
The problems affecting agriculture are very serious for the inhabitants of the El Faouar region as, in 2014, more than 36% of total employment there was in agriculture
Summary
It is challenging to estimate the specific scale and scope of impacts related to environmental change, water scarcity and the depletion of resources add to the already increasing levels and complexity of population mobility (Christian Aid, 2007; Ionesco, Mokhnacheva, & Gemenne, 2016). As North African countries lie in an area of low rainfall, the most serious problems are caused by climate change, water scarcity, and drought. In the South Mediterranean, environmental changes and limitations to oases reduce income from agriculture and force people to look for additional sources of income, including from migration. Introducing pertinent adaptation measures that allow for long-term adjustment of economic strategies can reduce forced movements from this region in the future There is a need to present new approaches to adaptation, such as “adaptive comanagement for climate change adaptation” (Plummer & Baird, 2013), measures taking into account the high level of uncertainty (Kwakkel, Haasnoot, & Walker, 2013), “patchwork household economy” (Ravnbøl, 2019) or bottom-up approaches known as “community-based adaptation” (Reid, 2009)
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