Sousse or Soussa is a city in Tunisia, capital of the Sousse Governorate. Located 140 kilometres (87 miles) south of the capital Tunis, the city has 271,428 inhabitants. Sousse is in the central-east of the country, on the Gulf of Hammamet, which is a part of the Mediterranean Sea.

Water quantity and quality is a major problem ever since at center and south Tunisia.
The Oued Laya coastal aquifer system is no exception to this. It’s a coastal saline
wetland located along the Mediterranean Sea in the Sahel near the seaside resort city
of Sousse, 140 km south of Tunis (Eastern Tunisia). This aquifer has a bad groundwater
resources quality with a high salinity in comparison with the neighbor’s aquifers.
The climate is semi arid and Mediterranean type, Average annual rainfall is about 320
mm/year. Potential evapotranspiration, calculated using the Riou method, exceeds
1750 mm/year. Official annual figures indicate water retrieval of 3,3×106 m3 for an
interannual average groundwater recharge estimated at 2,7×106 m3.