Emilie Lavie

Oases and globalisation

Today, we do not know how to define oases or how to classify them due to the diversity of their situations and changing routes on which they are situated. We may eventually keep this name for the small islands of greenery now irrigated by wells. They may have lost their trees, and may have been cut off from their network of exchange, or even been abandoned by farmers who have become urban dwellers. Do the new features of these spaces completely transform the age-old notion of oasis, even if the oasis landscape remains? Is then the notion of an oasis only linked to its superficial image? In looking for a more modern and dynamic definition of these spaces, it is relevant to propose new typologies. Once we assume that future oases will never look like they did in the past, this may imply not just an evolution of the term, but its demise.

Vegetation Changes Detection in Gabes Oases Using EO1/Hyperion Data

Gabes region, located on the southeastern coast of Tunisia, is characterized by unique maritime oases in Mediterranean basin.

The Transformation of the Oases of Mendoza (Argentina): How the Provincial Socio-spatial Structure Was Reversed by the Crises of the 1980s and 2000s

The oases of the Province of Mendoza , sited on the arid piedmont of the Argentinian Andes , have experienced some changes in their organisation, according to the civilisations that have cultivated these lands: Huarpes , Incas , Spanish colonisers and European migrants . Although these changes in societies transformed the agricultural orientation , the crises of the 1980s and 2000s did not radically change the typical Mediterranean landscape of such spaces. However, on the one hand they created a new type of landscape and, on the other hand, they had a deep impact on the socio-spatial and economic structures : former cores became secondary, and what used to be desert margins were developed until they became the new economic centre of the Province.

Mountain-Oases Faced with New Roads: Case Studies from the Andes and the Himalayas

In the dry regions of high mountains , communities often live in small oases; relying on rivers fed by snow/glacial melt waters, villagers develop gravity -fed networks , so as to irrigate their surrounding valleys and terraces. Our two case studies, Uspallata (12 km2) in the Mendoza River Valley of the Central Argentinian Andes , and Mustang District (almost 2000 km2) in the Kali Gandaki Valley north of the Nepalese Himalayas , illustrate the functioning of oasis systems and recent changes brought about by the development of roads , related to their position close to international boundaries .