Electrical Resistivity Tomography for the identification of the alluvium-Triassic boundary in Medenine Region (SE Tunisia)

Claudio Arras (a,b), Vittorio Longo (a), Valeria Testone (c), Alberto Carletti (a,b), Cristina Buttau (b), Stefania Da Pelo (b), Mohamed Ouessar (d) & Giorgio Ghiglieri (a,b)
(a) Desertification Research Center – NRD, University of Sassari, Viale Italia 39 – 07100 Sassari, Italy (nrd@uniss.it) E-mail: cla.arras1@studenti.unica.it (b) Department of Chemical and Geological Sciences, University of Cagliari, Via Trentino 51 – 09127 Cagliari, Italy. (c) Department of Science for Nature and Environmental Resources, University of Sassari, Via Piandanna 4 – 07100 Sassari, Italy. (d) Institutes des Région Arides - IRA, Route du Djorf km 22.5 Médenine, Tunisie (Ouessar.Mohamed@ira.rnrt.tn)

The Jeffara Plain, in Medenine region (SE Tunisia), suffers of dry climatic conditions. Lower Triassic sandstones widely outcrop within the Plain and they host a strategic aquifer exploited for drinking and irrigation purposes. An insufficient natural recharge and an increasing water demand have led to an overexploitation of such aquifer. Water harvesting techniques and particularly Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) systems can be useful tools for restoring groundwater resources. To better design the MAR system and to characterize the local geological setting, an Electrical Resistivity Tomography survey was conducted in six selected sites in the Jeffara Plain, within the frame of EU WADIS-MAR project.

Managed aquifer recharge, ERT survey, SE Tunisia, Wadismar project.