National Indicators of Sustainable Development 2010.

In order to follow up the environmental situation and achieve a sustainable development, the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development through the Tunisian Observatory for Environment and Sustainable Development (OTEDD) calculated and followed up 130 indicators classified as national, regional and sectoral indicators. 45 of these indicators have been given priority over the others and they are: (i) 15 environmental indicators; (ii) 15 social indicators; and (iii) 15 economic indicators. This report, the second after the development of the first one in 2004, is a national wide document that for every priority indicator exposes the definition, development and analysis of changes observed over time. In detail, the priority indicators deal with the percentages of several matters divided for the three sectors. As for the environment, they are the exploitation of conventional water resources by type of resource and by economic sector; exploitation of non-conventional water resources; farmland irrigated with water economy techniques; land suffering from desertification; forest cover and pasture areas; protected areas; endangered species; carbon intensity in the energy sector; primary energy density; percentage of exploitation of renewable energies; greenhouse gas emissions; green area per inhabitant; treated waste in controlled plantations; connection to the disinfection network and water treatment. The social indicators evaluate the natural population growth; number of patients per doctor; number of beds in public hospitals per 1000 inhabitants; infant mortality rate; poverty; education; illiteracy; unemployment; urbanization; drinking water supply; connection to the electricity grid; telephone network; internet users per 100 inhabitants; number of dwellings per 100 families; and human development index. The economic indicators regard investment share in gross domestic product; foreign debt; GDP per capita; percentage of agriculture and marine fishing in GDP; agricultural exports; cultivated land by type of cultivation; food trade balance; use of fertilizers; exploitation of fisheries resources; tourism in GDP; number of nights spent in hotels; industry in GDP; industrial zones preparation and environmental rehabilitation of industrial enterprises; industrial exports, and mass transit by type of transport.
The document, in general, is a report on the successes achieved in the various above-mentioned sectors and, in some cases, proposes further actions especially as regards the sustainable use of water.
In order to make agriculture more sustainable, the report suggests (i) to control the exploitation of surface water resources through the reduction of draining and evaporation phenomena, control on exceptional rainfall and their storage, whether by transferring water from one basin to another or by storing water in the substrates, and improving the natural leakage rate of surface water; (ii) control the exploitation of groundwater through reinforcing the recharge of the aquifers, strengthening integrated and synchronized management of both surface and groundwater; and (iii) rationalize the utilization of available water for the irrigation sector, in particular: (a) development of irrigation techniques within agricultural farms in order to modernize agriculture; (b) develop annual programs for the maintenance of public irrigated areas in order to reduce water losses; and (c) development of the community participation in the management of water and water installations. It also emphasizes on the reuse of quality controlled treated water and developing their use in particular in the areas of greatest tourist activity.