Algeria copes with social and environmental issues linked with water management

Its less than 600 m³ per inhabitant per year place Algeria in the category of the poor countries in water resources. Confronted with these issues, the Algerian government authorities undertook, at the beginning of the first decade of the century, a series of major projects and established a water management policy. SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT, which is present in the North African country through its subsidiaries Degrémont, SAFEGE and AGBAR, accompanies the Algerian authorities as they deal with these issues.


Algeria (population in 2010: 36 million) is in the category of countries poor in water resources given the scarcity threshold set by the World Bank at 1,000 m³ per inhabitant per year. With a surface area of 2.4 million km², the country is geographically and climatically diverse with, from north to south, coastal and sublittoral zones, a vast stretch of high, semi-arid plains and an immense Saharan region with an arid and hyper-arid climate.
This highly uneven population distribution involves, moreover, extremely disparate pressures on resources. The coastal fringe supports two thirds of the population with 4% of the surface area, while the high plains regions, which cover 9% of the surface area, contain one quarter. For example, Algiers, whose current population is 3.2 million, has a 66% urbanization rate and this is expected to exceed 83% by 2050. Structural and economic factors linked to the development of the agricultural and industrial sectors have increased water needs even more.

The need for a new water management policy
Faced with these issues, at the beginning of the present decade the Algerian governmental authorities launched a series of major projects. Among other measures, Algeria has established a water management policy designed to improve services to population centres through the mobilisation of conventional resources (regional transfers and dams), but also through the desalination of sea water. Algeria now has 66 dams with a storage capacity of nearly 7 billion m³. Stress has also been placed on the theme of wastewater treatment. To consolidate the protection of the water supply to large cities and coastal population centres, Algeria has also exploited sea water desalination technology. 21 desalination plants were built in 2003 as part of an emergency programme. The construction of 13 additional, high capacity plants was subsequently launched.
Of those facilities, four are already operational, including the Algiers plant. These should eventually be able to supply 2.3 million m³ per day.

SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT, a historic partner to the Algerian government
Present for many years in the country and its region, particularly through the Société Nord Africaine des Eaux in the decade from 1920 to 1930, SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT is assisting the country as it copes with water related resources, through its subsidiaries Degrémont, SAFEGE and AGBAR, both in the water domain (design, construction and management of facilities) and in the area of engineering and consulting.
The Group is therefore participating in various groundbreaking achievements such as:

• support for the modernization of water and wastewater treatment services for the city of Algiers
• design and construction by Degrémont of seven drinking water production plants for Algérienne des Eaux and the Agence Nationale des Barrages et des Transferts (Algerian national agency for dams and transfers)
• the general study by SAFEGE of sea water desalination along the entire coastline (1,200 km) for the development of drinking water supplies to the coastal fringe
• the study of the transfer of water from the Sahara towards northern Algeria (SAFEGE)
• the contract for the management of drinking water and wastewater treatment for the city of Oran (AGBAR).

In 2008 in Oran, applying the same principle as in Algiers, the Algerian authorities have entrusted, for a period of five years, the management of water and wastewater treatment for the city to the Spanish firm AGBAR. This company, which today is a 75%-owned subsidiary of SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT, has contributed its expertise , over the past four years to the Société des Eaux de Oran (SEOR, the Oran water company), with the aim of accompanying and supporting the modernization of water and wastewater treatment services and guaranteeing the best quality of service to the inhabitants of the Wilaya of Oran, comprising 26 municipalities. One year before the contract expiration date, AGBAR and SEOR have already made significant progress enabling them to offer better services to the people of Oran. Currently, 100% of the city’s inhabitants and 75% of the population of the Wilaya of Oran have access to water 24 hours a day, seven days a week.