Social conflict in water resource management and its environmental impacts in south-eastern Tunisia

The linkage between environmental and social degradation is particularly evident in poor and marginal areas. Poor communities increase their vulnerability if they depend on a depleted source. Therefore, the need to protect a natural resource has to be coupled with the need to sustain the local sources of income, e.g. by supporting the acquisition of technical options to rationalise the water demand or by providing alternative solutions to those relying on the endangered resource. A cooperative approach between communities and institutions is a fundamental prerequisite for a sustainable development of the target areas. In all cases, decisions have to be made through processes involving stakeholder participation. In contrast, the application of top-down decisions and partial or specific sectoral solutions can constitute a cause for social and institutional conflicts.