The role of the jessour system for agrobiodiversity preservation in Southern Tunisia

Abstract

Mediterranean countries are still characterized by a great variety of historical cultural landscapes, as a result of the millenary human presence that has shaped the territory through agro-silvo-pastoral practices. In the arid regions of south eastern Tunisia, the land use is predominantly olive trees cropping and, because of the difficulties related to water scarcity, local population have developed a peculiar water harvesting technique ensuring the cultivation activities and minimising the risk from droughts. Jessour consist of small dams built across gullies and wadi thalwegs, creating a succession of terraces that partially retain the surface water and sediments required for crop growth. These structures are commonly built inside the watercourses to intercept runoff and sediments or at the foot of slopes. Considering that the biodiversity associated to traditional agricultural practices is important, especially in difficult environments, for ensuring food and nutrition to local communities, it results fundamental to preserve these peculiar practices. Moreover, taking into account that the presence of these water harvesting techniques allows the existence of a wide variety of flora and fauna species it result to be even more important to identify and maintain them from an ecological point of view. The research focused on the jessour identification and mapping in order to define their distribution nearby Douiret, in south of Tunisia, and describe the wide variety of species cultivated thanks to this traditional water harvesting solution. Moreover, using QGis software it was possible to analyse both jessour structure and peculiarities as well as their distribution according to the local morphological structure.