TITLE:
Thirteen Centuries of Drought in Tunisia: Historical Reconstruction and Bibliometric Analysis of Indexes in the MENA Context
AUTHORS:
Safouane Mouelhi, Imene Ouni, Sana Ben Mariem, Sabri Kanzari, Mohamed Ali Ben Abdallah
KEYWORDS:
Drought, Tunisia, MENA Region, Index, Bibliometric Analysis, Historical Reconstruction, Water Resources Management
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Modern Hydrology,
Vol.16 No.2,
April
23,
2026
ABSTRACT: This paper aims to characterize drought in Tunisia and the MENA region through an approach combining historical reconstruction (700-2023) and bibliometric analysis of monitoring indicators. A multidimensional database was created by cross-referencing the archives of the Directorate General of Water Resources, historical chronicles, and a corpus of more than 5000 articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science, updated for the MENA region and Tunisia until February 2026. The results reveal an acceleration in the frequency and intensity of dry spells over the last two centuries, with a close link between water crises and socio-political dynamics. Bibliometric analysis confirms the predominance of meteorological indexes, in particular the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), to the detriment of hydrological indexes, reflecting a structural bias between diagnostic tools and management needs. For Tunisia, although the SPI is the benchmark due to its simplicity of calculation, no single index effectively characterizes drought across the entire territory due to the diversity of bioclimatic zones. These results call for the development of multi-indicator approaches integrating meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological dimensions to strengthen water resilience in the face of climate change.