Evaluation of Construction Parameters of Traditional Water Harvesting Technique (Jessour) by PCA analysis in the Southeast of Tunisia

Soil and water conservation issue is one of the most important environmental challenges for climate change and land degradation processes in arid and semi-arid regions of the century. Many water-harvesting techniques have been developed so far to face these challenges. In this technique, the components of constructions directly affect the water runoff and water quantity and indirectly affect the soil loss amounts by water erosion. In this study, we tried to find out that the most important constructional parameters of the jessour which is a traditional water harvesting technique known from the Roman occupation for soil and water conservation attempts in the arid regions. This study was performed in the micro-watershed of El-Jouabit in Matmata mountains in the southeast of Tunisia Totally, 620 Jesr and 9 construction parameters were evaluated, such as; length of the terrace of the Jesr (m); width of the terrace of the Jesr (m); height of retention (m); height of the tabia (m); length of the tabia (m); capacity of retention (m3); surface of retention (m2); surface of the impluvium (m2) and number of planted trees). As a result, 4 parameters were found as the most important to ensure the best performance of this technique which is the height of retention, the capacity of retention, the surface of retention and surface of the surface of the impluvium.

کلیدواژه ها:

Watershed management ، Soil and water conservation ، Water harvesting techniques ، Southeastern Tunisia ، Jessour