I have long used, as a screensaver, this picture I took on an early morning departure flight of Ghardaia and its surrounding villages which is such a reminder of the fragility of life, and water access, in such challenging surroundings.
Planning (again! thanks to covid) for the informal Suez FAC reunion in Paris I was reminded again of the 2012 visit we made to Algeria (very impressive Algiers management contract with dramatic performance improvements) and the weekend in Ghardaia in the Sahara - with its sophisticated water management - capturing flash flows through flooded streets with 'diverters' for each closed compound household to capture a share of the flood for their household gardens.
it's possible to see the capture points on the right hand side of the street.
Searching on Google Earth to remind myself of which bit of the town was which, I noticed the new wastewater treatment ponds - very impressive. I guess the national oil and gas money makes it more straightforward to deliver this quality of infrastructure, even in such a remote area.
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