Foggara Irrigation System

A network of underground qanats that has irrigated the oasis for over a thousand years

The foggara is the genius of Saharan civilisation: a gently-sloping underground channel that taps a buried aquifer and carries the water by gravity to where it is needed, with no pumping at all. In Salah's foggaras are some of the most extensive in Algeria — dozens of separate channels feed the palm plantations on the outskirts of the town. They are still in active use, though pressure from boreholes and a falling water table threatens them.

The vertical maintenance shafts are visible from the road as small heaps of yellow rubble running in lines across the desert. Local guides can take you to the head of one of the active channels.

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A story
The In Salah foggaras were dug by hand, pre-modern engineering at its most patient. Workers sank vertical shafts at intervals across the desert, then tunnelled between them underground to carry water by gravity from the aquifer to the palmery. The shaft entrances — small piles of excavated rubble — march in lines across the desert north and west of the town and have done so for centuries.

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