The Environment and Sustainable Development in Front of the Artificialisation of the Coastlines: Coasts of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria

Abstract

Throughout the world, the advent of mass tourism and, in particular, seaside tourism has led to significant economic and demographic growth. This growth was most often followed by urban sprawl along the coasts, resulting in dramatic changes in their landscapes. These transformations were essentially an artificialisation of the coasts and the emergence of a barrier between the littoral space and the hinterland. Tunisia, and in particular the Sahelian region, have not escaped this phenomenon, and since the emergence of this economic sector in the early years of independence, there has been a simultaneous coastal and was confined in a narrow ribbon along the beaches thus turning its back to the hinterland. Moreover, in addition to the profound transformations that this urban continuum has produced on the coastal landscapes of this region, it has had other negative repercussions. This is due to its high consumption of spaces, particularly in vulnerable sites, its disturbance in the exploitation of natural resources (water pollution, access to water, reduction of local natural biodiversity, reduction of the coastal agricultural area, reduction of the beach surface, etc.) and its socio-cultural impact through the marginalization of countryside. This impact of coastal artificialisation, notably on the environment and sustainable development is found not only in the Sahelian region of Tunisia but also in several countries of the Mediterranean basin, such as: Morocco, where tourist and resort urbanization has taken place in the form of a ribbon along the beaches and on former coastal agricultural land, and Algeria, where a diffuse urbanization generated in particular by the most widespread form of dwelling which is the form of individual dwelling, has invaded coastlines such as those of the city of Oran.