Can we abandon traditional irrigation to the detriment of modern irrigation in the oasis of Ouakda? This is the question we pose in this study. Indeed, based on three missions carried out in the oasis of Ouakda during the years 2013, 2015 and 2016, we made visits and investigations to ancestral works as well as surveys of the local population. The results indicate that the Ksourian population irrigated the gardens and the palm grove by surface and underground water. Two ancestral dams made on the Bechar River for irrigation the gardens of the lower part. On the other hand, the foggaras irrigated the upper part of the palm grove. Today, new land has been built on the upper part of the palm grove. Thanks to new hydraulic techniques such as drilling and motor pumps, modern agriculture has developed on the other side of the palm grove to the detriment of oasis agriculture.

To resist against a hostile environment, the oases of Saoura developed ingenious techniques of catchment and sharing of water to exploit the rare and precious waters of the groundwater. But the intervention of modern irrigation techniques has disrupted the entire oasis system inside the oasis such as the spring, the palm grove and the ksar. These techniques have overexploited the groundwater supplying the palm grove in terms of quantity and quality. For centuries, the oases of Mougheul used only the source (with a flow of 25 dm3∙s−1 in 2001) which is inside the oasis to irrigate the parcels and herds. After the year 2005, the state decided to supply the city of Bechar with drinking water through the catchment field of Mougheul through five modern boreholes, which had a profound impact on the oasis, its surroundings, and the whole artesian source. In this work, we study the impact of the use of modern catchment systems on the water source and the life of the Mougheul population. By interviewing farmers and landowners about the impact of groundwater scarcity on the oasis. This allowed knowing the current state of the oasis and the reasons for its deterioration.

In the valley of Saoura, the demand for water for irrigation has increased significantly and rapidly, it requires mobilization and rational and intensive use of all existing water sources like the groundwater which are the only source of drinking water supply and irrigation in the region and the protection of the large vein that feeds the Saoura and bearing his name "oued Saoura".Oasis Kerzaz is amongst the the most celebrated oasis and the biggest of valley of Saoura , it now suffers from several impediments to their development as: the scarcity of irrigation water, land abandonment, the silting up, the chunking and the exiguity of agricultural land, the food nature of agricultural activity and incurable diseases of crops.

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Water plays a major role in the Algerian Sahara; it is the main cause of sustaining life of all living in an arid environment. Farmers in Beni Abbes exploiting groundwater for irrigation and to supply the urban center of the oasis, now the size of the palm grove of Beni Abbes shrink by over 50%, that is to say from 40 hectares to 20 hectares only, the oasis suffers from several causes of degradation, which are many: the overexploitation of groundwater aquifers by the anarchical use of pumps and boreholes,salinity of water and soil after the lowering of the groundwater level, the narrowness of the land due to inheritance, the negligence of the earth by the youth due to lack of their production efficiency. The fellahs of the oasis used several traditional techniques to bring water from the groundwater aquifers to its land and dwellings, as foggaras, the pendulum wells (shadoof wells), the accumulations basins and open channels (seguias). Our objective of this work is to study the current state of the oasis and the impact of the use of modern irrigation systems on water and soil of the oasis.