Aerial view of new government-organized agricultural plots near Ighzer, an ancient city near Timimoun. This agricultural scheme is supplied with water from drilled and pumped wells, that take water upstream from the sources of traditional wells and foggara aqueducts.
Declining water supply from traditional foggara aqueducts is slowly starving the old gardens nearby from their water. The water supplied by the foggara is decreasing because new wells with pumps are lowering the water table up hill from the water sources of the foggara, and the young people don't want to take on the job of maintaining them, which is difficult and dangerous work. Algeria's population is four times what it was at independence, and there is only so much water to be tapped in the Sahara without depleting the supply.
