Reference

 Focus

 Content

Legislative Decree of 24 September 1885

Water Resource Management

Emphasizes on the public hydraulic estate, including only surface and not groundwater resources

Legislative Decree of 24 May 1920

Water service provision

Provides for the creation of a special water service, the establishment of an agricultural and industrial hydraulic fund and for the establishment of a Water Committee

Legislative Decrees of 5 August 1933, 26 November 1936 and 24 March 1938

Water utilization, conservation and pricing

Regulates the utilization and conservation of public estate water and fixes the price for water use

Legislative Decrees of 30 July 1963, 11 January 1945 and 17 March 1949

Creation of groups of hydraulic interest

Emphasizes on the regulation and organization of groups of associations of hydraulic interest

Laws of 11 January 1958, 26 June 1960, 27 May 1963 and 16 February 1971

Water for irrigation

Provides for the creation of public irrigated perimeters and emphasizes on the role of the government to develop agriculture

Legislative decrees of 12 March 1964 and Decisions of 19 July 1958 and of 12 March 1964

Water for irrigation

Emphasizes on the role of the farmers in the creation, management and irrigation through privately built water infrastructure and in soil and water conservation

Law no 75-16 of 31 March 1975

Law for water resource mobilization, exploitation and protection

Confirmes all regulations cited above and introduced new elements for water resources protection and utilization

Reference

 Focus

 Content

Chapter 1
(7 articles)

Water resource management

Defined all components of the public hydraulic estate, which is administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources.

Chapter 2
(13 articles)

Water mobilization and conservation

Defined the perimeters for the management and water utilization, operations needed for the granting of authorization from the administration, regulated the instauration of protection zones for groundwater tables, and identified the agents in charge of water conservation and protection of the public water estate

Chapter 3
(18 articles)

Water exploitation

Emphasizes on the replacement of private water ownership rights by rights of use and describes on all actions required to obtain such rights. The chapter focuses mainly on water springs and streams.

Chapter 4
(12 articles)

Water exploitation

Emphasizes on the identification of special zones in the water public estate and regulated their exploitation, which is subject to a pre-authorization from the administration.

Chapter 5
(34 articles)

Water exploitation

Defined all regulations and responsibilities for hydraulic works and concessions required for the exploitation of the public water estate.

Chapter 6
(21 articles)

Water use and water quality

Emphasizes on water conservation, special measures for consumptive and potable water use and measures for agricultural use. Water use should be justified through economic assessment in order to ensure the preservation of water resources both in terms of quantity and quality.

Chapter 7
(46 articles)

Water quality

Includes regulations for addressing water pollution and flood mitigation, and regulates treated wastewater use.
Conditions of treated water reuse in agriculture are fixed by the Decree 89-1047, which describes the parameters to be analyzed and the list of crops that can be irrigated.
A relevant decision of the Ministry of Agriculture describes in more detail the list.

Chapter 8
(3 articles)

Emphasizes on the creation and organization of user-associations and defined the tasks attributed to Groups of Hydraulic Interest (GIH). Article 154 was modified by the Law of July 6, 1987, which redefined the activities of associations of collective interest, called initially user-associations.
Article 155 which was also modified by the same law, determined the regulations for these associations, which were approved by the Decrees of 12 January 1988 and of 21 December 1992. The framework provides associations with financial autonomy, as financial management was previously controlled by the government.

Chapter 9
(5 articles)

 Water law application

Determines jurisdictions and penalties for breach of the statutory provisions of the water law (code) and the decrees for its execution.