Looking for more groundwater. From the exploitation of the Bou Hafna aquifer (1895–present) to Franco-Tunisian hydrogeology

There is currently a trend in hydrological sciences to bond with the human dimensions of water. This is quite a turning point as the past few decades have rather been marked by the ‘naturalization’ of water, disregarding the fact that ‘hydrological spaces’ are the outcome of the constantly evolving relationships between water and society, in which hydrological sciences play a significant role. In this paper, we focus on a case study in Central Tunisia and question the relationship between the exploitation of water and the progressive development of hydrological sciences. With a history spanning more than a century, the scientific and technical ups and downs of the progressive exploitation of the Bou Hafna aquifer system provide a fascinating close-up of the emergence of a scientific discipline: hydrogeology. This case study shows how in the 1960s, concerns converged to a point of total control of a ‘resisting’ nature in which the physical dimensions of water supplanted all others. But the most recent stages of this history, marked by an increase in contestations in a post-revolutionary context, suggest that ‘social resistance’ may influence future developments in hydrogeology towards taking the social and political dimensions of water more into account thanpreviously.