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The 16 November was the chosen date by the UNESCO to celebrate the International World Heritage Day on the occasion of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage signed in Paris in 1972. The work, which the group of Jorge Hermosilla has been realizing since 2002 in the Mediterranean area, is precisely about heritage protection.

The aim of this project has been to detect, study, restore and increase in value the underground water hesitage that is still kept as underground water galleries. These were built between the 18th and 19th century on the Mediterranean shores and which origins go back to the Middle East regions. “For centuries, the technique of “qanats” or “foggara”, as these galleries are usually named, is spread along the two Mediterranean shores to Iberian Peninsula” Hermosilla says.

His group is the “ESTEPA Study of Landscape and Heritage” Research Unit which started to work in Valencian territory. With the support of AECID, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, some years later, he moved to Tunisia to work in the study of tunisian underground water galleries. And, specifically, it was in Gafsa Governorate where he started a pioneering research in El Guettar oasis, with the support of the “Programa 0,7” of the Universitat de València. According to the researcher, this place possesses “the best collection of galleries throughout the country”. 

During 2009 and 2013, the AECID project, realized by this ESTEPA unit, has been a milestone. “A study of this nature had never been made in Tunisia before; it has been a pioneering research because, on the one hand, it tackles the whole Tunisian territory and, on the other hand, it starts from a common heritage element: the undergound water gallery. We carried out a detailed study of nearly 110 and 120 of these galleries”, he points out. In parallel with these events, a restoration project of a water gallery (qanat) started. It had the collaboration of the Medina of El Guettar Conservation Association and the Institute of Arid Areas (IRA) and it were financed by the “Programa 0,7” of the Universitat de València.

The Tunisian town of El Guettar possesses more than thirty water galleries (“moukoula” in the native language), a collection which originated the oasis that is in there nowadays. The research group of the Universitat de València chose one of these galleries, called Aín Bousoufa (“aín” means “fountain”), because it was the only one that kept completely its original structure (gallery, skylights and mine entrance). “The gallery Aín Bousoufa has got between 26 and 28 shaft mines or skylights, it keeps the mine entrance (the exit of the horizontal gallery) placed just in the heart of the palm grove, it is the typical pattern of a Tunisian gallery and, besides, is in touch with an important mountain relief as the Jebel Orbata mountains which cause seasonal rainfall and allow to accumulate the underground water resources” Jorge Hermosilla points out.

This gallery connected with the ground-water level of Jebel Orbata Mountains. The working of a water gallery system involves collecting underground water by gathering it on the hillsides. These galleries are characterized by a gentle slope which facilitates the exit of the water by the gravity itself, without the support of aditional strength forces (human, animal, mechanic). Water galleries extend from the hillsides to the plain, where we find the oasis. This way, it wasn’t necessary to build up the shaft mines.

The mine length, in this time, exceeds a half kilometer. Because of this, there are near thirty skylights, that work as ventilation shafts, between gallery and ground-water level. This water extraction process, designed specially for irrigated crops, in particular for date palm, has been common in the Mediterranean shores for centuries. However, in case of Tunisian regions, this water heritage is in crisis because of his state of overgrown during 60’s and 70’s in the 20 century, because it was changed by vertical extraction shaft mines. Hermosilla explains that that moment was the time of Tunisian economic development, with the president Habib Bourguiba government.  This government got an economic politic lead up to the modernization of the agriculture and, with it, the expansion of the irrigated agriculture with wells. This water collection system reduced the ground-water level and the water galleries stopped working, as a consequence. The wells collected more water than the traditional system. As a result of this, the space of irrigated crops grew up and some water galleries were unuseful. “Now, there is no return - he afirms-. Tunisian economy, above all in inland areas, depends basically on the extensive livestock breeding, the olive tree cultivation and oasis - this last one have grown up to the date production -, and, therefore, they need to exploit the new irrigation systems”.

The value of Ain Bousoufa and his international significance

Under these circumstances, the Valencian reasearch group developed a restore project of the water gallery of Aín Bousoufa, because, between other reasons, it is a turistic key place that could revalue the area and upgrade the heritage, economic, and social conditions of the local population. As consequence, it has realized the partial restore of the gallery that has added value to the mine and made possible to visite this gallery. However, it hasn’t been possible to restore the water level of the river. For all this “it has been restore all the skylights, the mine entrance, the main shaft mine and the most part of the horizontal tunnel”, the project director explains. On the other side, it has been realized some disclosure actions to concern the people about the heritage importance of the gallery to native population. Tunisian television even made a report about the works realized.

The period of the Ain Bousoufa gallery restore coincided, for a few months, with the Tunisian revolution which stopped the works, but it didn’t cause their failure. In fact, the project, finished in 2013, has come out of the Tunisian frontier and it will be presented next month in an international conference that will take place in Abu Dabi, the second more important city of the United Arab Emirates, organized by the Sorbonne University. Besides, Publications Service of the Universitat de València has published a book about the project, included in a collection directed by Jorge Hermosilla. This collection was launched in the Casa Árabe of Madrid with the attendance of the ambassadors of some arab countries in Spain, such as Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. AECID, also, has shown interest in the research and the continue of the ESTEPA group work in this area to apply it to others Maghreb territories.

The “Programa 0,7” of the Universitat de València