We Must Save the Foggaras of Touat

Synopsis

The Touat region is located in the western part of the Algerian Sahara. A historic hub of communication between the Maghreb and the Sudan, Touat was long a strategic focal point for trade routes and economic prosperity. The *foggara* systems of the Touat, Gourara, and Tidikelt oases consist of an ancestral network of slightly inclined underground channels that capture groundwater and transport it by gravity to the surface to irrigate the oases. The specific elements of the *foggara*—along with the traditional knowledge and skills of the water measurers, or *kayalin al-ma’*—have been included on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in need of urgent safeguarding since 2018. This ancient "oral corpus" continues to command the admiration of engineers and scientists to this day, yet it is threatened by a lack of new practitioners, as their numbers steadily decline.