INVENTORY OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION

PHOTOGRAPHICAL  AND  TYPOLOGICAL  INVENTORY

B17 - HORTICULTURE-COMBINED-WITH-HIGH-TRUNK-PLANTS
The majen (see fig. above) is the oasis farmer's fortune. It is periodically opened by lifting a stone which functions as a little sluice gate for the irrigation of the fields. Below, a water master from the Algerian oasis of Adrar showing the perforated sheet (hallafa) that is used for measuring the flows at the outlet of the big foggara.
The fruitful fields are arranged in small garden parcels called jenna which means "garden" and "paradise". The geometrical shape of the cultivations corresponds to the order which underlies the close relationship in nature between microcosm and macrocosm typical of the notion of oasis.
Humidity water supply to the foggara. The air full of moisture of the palm grove is sucked out by the foggara in the opposite direction to the water run-off; it condenses in the tunnel and comes out of the shafts as dry air. During the night the temperature decreases and determines a further moisture condensation on the soil surface that is absorbed by the shafts and the tunnel.
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INVENTORY OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION