Water stress has become a national issue: for more than two decades, Tunisia has lived below the critical threshold of 500 cubic metres per person per year, a situation worsened by climate change. A national dialogue opens in Tunis on 24 November 2025 to rethink water management.
Why has water stress become a national issue?
of all the water on the planet, only 0.65% is accessible fresh water
The national dialogue is set to open on Monday 24 November 2025, at the IACE headquarters in Lac 1, Tunis. It aims to put at the centre of the debate a reality you already feel at the tap: Tunisia is facing intense water stress. Water supply per person is insufficient.
This tension is nothing new. It has been building for more than two decades, worsened further by climate change and drought.
What does it mean to live below the 500-cubic-metre threshold per person?
Living below the threshold of 500 cubic metres per person per year is already Tunisia's reality. This figure represents the amount of water available each year for every person, and falling below it marks what is considered a critical shortage. Tunisia has crossed that line: the resource is no longer enough to meet needs without strain.
To grasp the scale of the situation, it helps to set it against the global picture: of all the water on the planet, only 0.65% is accessible fresh water. This worldwide scarcity makes Tunisia’s case all the more pressing, as every household, yours included, now draws on a resource that is already stretched thin.
How is the country dealing with this scarcity?
With one of the highest levels of exposure to water stress on record, the country is now drawing on almost all of its conventional water resources. It is also turning to desalination to ease the pressure. This two-pronged strategy speaks to the scale of the shortfall more than it solves it outright.
Closing this gap means drawing on every available solution and finding inventive ways to make the most of a resource that has become scarce. This effort is unfolding against a backdrop of environmental decline: erosion, dam sedimentation and wastewater pollution are deepening the crisis and complicating every response.
What can you change at home, starting today?
Tunisia's water crisis is fed by poorly anticipated droughts and by agricultural and urban pollution, and overconsumption tips the scales too. Before looking at the bigger national picture, every household can question its own habits: a tap left running, a half-empty washing machine load, a garden watered without a second thought. These are ordinary gestures, but they add up, and they are among the few factors in this problem that depend entirely on us.
Another misconception worth correcting at home concerns the quality of tap water. In Tunisia, it meets health standards, which makes reaching automatically for a bottle less necessary than you might think. If the taste puts you off, a filter jug or a simple charcoal filter is enough to soften it, without giving up on water that is already safe and readily available.
Changing habits at home will not, on its own, solve a shortfall playing out at the national scale, but every gesture counts in an equation where the resource is no longer replenishing fast enough. Turning off the tap between rinses, tracking down the drip that has gone on too long, thinking twice before watering the garden or doing a wash: these are simple habits, within everyone’s reach, that ease the strain on an already stretched resource. The national dialogue now opening plays out on a grand scale, but it also starts, very concretely, at home.
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