**3.2 Impact on habitat**

The Maghreb region has limited freshwater reserves. However, there are some permanent rivers that provide fresh water as resource such as Cheliff River in Algeria, Draa and Oum Er-Rbia in Morocco, Latin Bagradas in Tunisia and the Senegal River in Mauritania. As explained earlier the main factors affecting the water reserves in the Maghreb are: exponential population growth—urbanization, climate change, agriculture and pollution. These factors not only cause water risk to human but also threat ecosystems on

*Water Scarcity Management in the Maghreb Region DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103788*

which both local human populations and aquatics species depend on their survival. For example, when sea level rises as rapidly as it has been; it brings with it many impacts such as (1) wetland flooding in the rainy season, (2) it can cause destructive coastal erosion, (3) the infiltration of sea water in the water-tables which can lead to groundwater quality degradation, (4) the disappearance of low-lying wet lands and all the related biodiversity and (5) lost habitat for fish, birds, and plants. Aquatic ecosystems are the ultimate sinks for the contaminants because of the overuse of pesticides and fertilizers (agricultural activities) and sewage from residential and industrial areas (fecal waste, chemicals, petroleum, sediment). Therefore, water will lose its self-generating capacity and many aquatic species cannot cope with this severe contamination in such ecosystems and also changes associated with the community composition [34]. Knowing that river flow regimes play a key role in freshwater ecosystems. Nevertheless, human activities (industry and agriculture) are known to be severely affecting freshwater ecosystems by rise in temperatures and altering river flow regimes and thereby affecting the habitat conditions and, hence the biodiversity of organisms in surface waters and groundwater.
