For a Sustainable Use of Agricultural Land in Constantine (Algeria)

Abstract

Constantine’s urbanization is a two-faced issue. In addition to its rapid and uncontrolled nature, the city's expansion boundaries lie entirely within the agricultural territory of the valleys of Oued El Rhumel and Oued Boumerzoug. These agricultural lands have unfortunately attracted large-scale housing, infrastructure, amenities, and services projects because of their favorable and inexpensive geological nature for urbanization. This contribution aims to assess the damage done to the region's agricultural heritage from the end of the 1980s to the year 2021. The chosen approach entails conducting a spatiotemporal analysis of the phenomenon of urban sprawl’s impact on agricultural land using the DPSIR framework. The findings demonstrate that between 1985 and 2020, approximately 22 000 hectares of the total agricultural land were lost throughout the study area. Approximately 50% of the agricultural land lost was affected by urbanization.