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Paper short abstract

We analyse the challenges a desert community meets in the collective mobilisation around aquifer recharge and groundwater use. Renewing the profound and shared knowledge required to maintain a perennial water source, and maintaining a collective vision of water challenge this mobilisation.

Paper long abstract

In the Beni Isguen oasis in the Algerian Sahara, the secular knowledge of groundwater dynamics has been acquired over centuries through intermittent flood-based aquifer recharge and regular groundwater use. The 2025 autumn floods, after a long period of drought, showcased once again the community mobilisation around water with traditional water stewards (Umana Essayl) guiding the water to the different recharge infrastructures of the oasis, along with considerable participation of the community. However, contemporary agricultural development schemes upstream of the oasis, and more largely the penetration of ‘modern’ water in the Sahara, have perturbed the community-based organisation of flood management. First, farmers in modern extensions built hastily (and individually) several small dykes a few days before the flood arrived to collect water. After noticing that volumes arriving at the downstream dam were abnormally low, the Umana reported to the authorities, who intervened to destroy the dykes. Isotopic analysis of water samples confirmed that in the extensions, floodwater had replenished the aquifer. Little change occurred in the oasis signalling low recharge. Second, many young people followed the event, notably documenting it with smartphones. Yet, they did not know the exact time of the flood's arrival, showing the problematic intergenerational knowledge transmission. The Umana, on the other hand, had accurate information about the floods, sharing videos taken in real time. Both events show the challenges the community meets in upkeeping/renewing shared knowledge of and collective action around groundwater, which are the result of an accumulation of everyday interactions with aquifers and between people.