tanitdata/DatePalm
Domain:
agricultureclimateCreator:
tan
Host:
Satellite-based monitoring of aquifer sustainability and climate-yield decoupling in southern Tunisia's date palm oases (2002–2024).
# DatePalm
*Conceptual overview of the three findings. Exact statistics in the associated paper.*
Satellite-based monitoring of aquifer sustainability and climate–yield
decoupling in southern Tunisia's date palm oases (2002–2024).
**Associated paper:** "Emerging climate–yield re-coupling in overexploited
date palm oases: satellite evidence from a 22-year temporal decoupling
index in southern Tunisia" — published in *Agricultural Water Management*
333 (2026) 110557:
doi.org.
A preprint is also available on EarthArXiv:
doi.org.
**Second study (this repository also supports):** "The fossil-water debt of
agricultural exports: satellite gravimetry and a climate–yield re-coupling
index, demonstrated for Tunisian dates" — under review. Data and code specific
to that study are in `ecological_debt/`; it reuses the shared
data spine below and adds a fossil-water-debt valuation layer.
**Authors:** Tarek Gasmi, Ramzi Guesmi, Slim Abdelbari, Soura Boulaares, Sajeda Albarghati
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## Key findings
### 1. Yield forecasting fails in irrigated oases
No ML model outperforms a naive trend baseline (~4.2% MAPE). All models
return negative R² on yield anomaly prediction. The irrigation buffer
decouples production from satellite-observable climate signals.
### 2. GRACE reveals −16.6 cm groundwater loss
*Kébili nexus: production growth, well proliferation, GRACE depletion, and emerging VPD sensitivity.*
Terrestrial water storage fell from +0.32 cm (2002–2005) to −16.26 cm
(2020–2024), with the depletion rate tripling from −0.44 cm yr⁻¹ to
−1.19 cm yr⁻¹ around 2012.
### 3. A temporal decoupling index detects emerging vulnerability
*VPD-yield/ha coupling: the signal survives area normalization.*
Under leakage-free linear detrending, three of four governorates show
statistically significant rising VPD–yield/ha coupling. Kébili's rolling
slope is +0.031 yr⁻¹ (HAC p = 3.7×10⁻⁶). The signal survives area
normalization …