Sustainable Cities and Society 13 (2014) 1–11 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sustainable Cities and Society jou rnal h om epage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scs Algiers carrying capacity with respect to per capita domestic water use Meriem Naimi-Ait-Aoudia a,b,∗ , Ewa Berezowska-Azzag a a EPAU, Ecole Polytechnique d’Architecture et d’Urbanisme, Route de Beaulieu, El-Harrach, 16200 Algiers, Algeria b USDB, Université Saad Dahleb Blida, Route de Soumaa, BP 270, Blida, Algeria a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Algiers water supply Per capita domestic water use Carrying capacity a b s t r a c t Water is a vital resource for humankind existence, and all ancient civilizations grew near rivers and waterholes. Wellbeing and health concerns are closely linked to the level of water consumption. That is why household water use constitutes the most important component of water supply and planning system. Rational management of this valuable resource is all the more imperative in countries facing water scarcity. In the mid nineties water shortages were frequent in Algiers and the situation worsened with cyclical droughts and population growth. Algerian government has launched major infrastructure projects consisting of dams and desalination plants to expand the water supply system. In this paper we will focus on Algiers carrying capacity with respect to household water use. We will first give a description of the current water supply system. Algiers water carrying capacity assessment is made considering internationally admitted levels of household consumption and taking into account water inputs that can significantly vary according to dry and wet years. The specific results can be used at a strategic level to lay the foundations of an urban sustainable policy. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The rampant growth of the world population exerts pressure on available natural resources, and can lead to resources depletion and harmful effects on the environment. In the past, several scho- lars have warned on the inadequacy between resources supply and population growth. Despite his pessimistic view, Malthus (1798) was among the precursors that have raised the necessity to control the population growth. Malthus emphasized that the exponential population growth would lead to food shortage given the assump- tion of a linear growth in food production. Verhulst (1838) put Malthus idea into a mathematical equation well known as the logis- tic equation describing human population growth. Ehrlich (1968), under the explosive title “population bomb”, outlined the earth finite capacity to sustain human civilization (a revisited paper was published in 2009). Meadows et al. (1972), in their seminal report to the Club of Rome, investigate five major issues of global concern that are: rapid population growth, malnutrition and starvation, economic growth and its corollaries, depletion of non-renewable resources and environmental damages. They concluded that if the overall situation remains unchanged, the limits to growth on earth ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +213 662438721; fax: +213 21508976. E-mail address: m ait aoudia@yahoo.com (M. Naimi-Ait-Aoudia). will be reached over the next hundred years. Barnosky et al. (2012) once again sounded the alarm. They highlight the risk of global ecosystem brutal shift, brought about by human activities, and could cause dramatic consequences for mankind. There is unanimous agreement that humanity must live within its supply capacity and assimilation of discharges. Carrying capac- ity is a concept that deals with this issue to ensure a sustainable development of humankind (Arrow et al., 1995; Cohen, 1995). This concept stems from biology: “the carrying capacity of a given ecosystem is the total number of organisms in a given species for which there are sufficient resources, so that they survive and repro- duce”. For human beings, Rees (1992) defined carrying capacity as: “the maximum rate of resource consumption and waste discharge that can be sustained indefinitely in a given region without pro- gressively impairing the functional integrity and productivity of relevant ecosystems”. The majority of the world population lives now in cities, and this trend will continue in the future. Unbridled growth of cities worldwide poses a serious threat to global environment. Several authors have attempted to adapt the concept of carrying capacity to the urban context. For Godschalk and Parker (1975), the carry- ing capacity is the ability of the natural and built environment to withstand the demands of the various uses. According to Schneider, Godschalk, and Axler (1978), the carrying capacity is the ability of a natural and artificial system to absorb the population growth http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2014.03.006 2210-6707/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.