Water for a sustainable development: challenges and strategies
The socio-economical development of a country or a region is the main objective of all managers; however, this affects inevitably the water resources in terms of quality related to domestic and industrial pollution, and also quantity due to increasing consumption use. Henceforth, a sustainable development requires taking into consideration the social and the economical as well as environmental factors. Algeria is one of the northern countries of the Mediterranean basin which suffers from water shortage. The river flows are characterized by important seasonal and inter-year irregularities, especially in flood periods. Indeed, the knowledge of the climatic conditions has an important role in the economical planning: it permits the best management of the uncontrolled flows for short, mean, and long term. The sustainable development requires taking a number of steps, among others, development of information system, management and prediction of the risks, forecasting natural disasters, implementation of systems of early detection, as well as plans of intervening in case of emergency. We develop in this article: the water resources in Algeria and Mediterranean; the structures of organization and of water management; the political management, institution and right; the actual status of water resources, stakes, and future challenges to deal with; the proposition of a certain number of strategies and a vision of the water resources. A set of recommendations is given in order to solve the problem of crisis of the water and for sustainable development.