The Great Man-Made River International Water Prize for Arid and Semi-Arid Zones awarded to Dr. Chahbani

The Prize is awarded in recognition of fundamental and substantial contributions to the assessment, development, management and/or use of water resources in arid and semi-arid areas. It is made possible by a generous donation from the government of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

The Great Man-Made River International Water Prize for Arid and Semi-Arid Zones is awarded to Dr Bellachheb Chahbani whose research findings over the last 25 years at the Institute of Arid Regions in Médenine, Tunisia, have led to the development of an approach to improve water use.

This new approach improves water use through the employment of both buried stone pockets in deep soil terraces and shallow water diffusing systems, which prevents surface water from evaporating and reduces weed growth, and small earth dams for water collection and direct water use. His approach limits run off and optimizes the use of water that would otherwise render the soil saline. In developing this approach, Dr Chahbani identified and overcame numerous technical aspects and recruited not only researchers but also local farmers to test the effectiveness of his ‘stone pocket' technology.

In essence, what Dr Chahbani has accomplished has increased the reliability of irrigation water that can be made available to crops, while at the same time reducing the water needed to effectively irrigate such crops. His new techniques have been implemented and are currently in use in both central and southern Tunisia and Algeria. As a result, not only have operating costs been reduced by around a third, but also many crops have been saved that would otherwise have perished from lack of water under drought conditions. In addition, clear socio-economic benefits and favourable environmental impacts have since been achieved in those regions.

Dr Chahbani's techniques are consistent with UNESCO's goals to improve the effectiveness of water resources management in regions all over the world.