Current view: Text account
Site description (2001 baseline):
Site location and context
Lac Oubeïra lies about 60 km east of the city of Annaba and 15 km west of the Tunisian border, in the north-east of the country. It forms part of the complex of wetlands included within the Parc National d’El Kala and lies c.10 km west of Lac Tonga (site DZ002). The site lies at 25 m altitude and consists of a shallow (maximum depth 3 m), permanent, eutrophic, freshwater lake surrounded on the three sides by cork oak woodland and maquis. The lake lies c.5 km from the Mediterranean Sea and it is bounded to the north by a major sand-dune system. The lake is replenished in winter when flood water from the Oued El Kebir flows across intervening marshland and in to the lake via a channel in the south-east corner. Sluices have been constructed on the channel to retain water in the lake when the flood levels drop. The lake can be slightly saline, especially in summer, as indicated by the presence of zooplankton typical of slightly saline conditions. There is a small area of
Phragmites australis and
Scirpus lacustris on the western shore and dense submerged aquatic vegetation dominated by
Myriophyllum and
Ceratophyllum spp. There are extensive beds of
Potamogeton pectinatus, and
Trapa natans (rare in Algeria) is present. The lake supports a commercial fishery based on the exploitation of indigenous species of
Mugil,
Anguilla and
Alosa; these, together with
Atherina sp. and
Gambusia affinis gain entry to the lake during winter floods. The shallow edges and the shores of the lake are grazed, maintaining a grassland strip clear of trees around the water’s edge. There is some hunting, but this is less intensive than on Lac Tonga (site DZ002).
See Box for key species. Several thousand
Aythya nyroca wintered here and in Lac Melah (site DZ003) in the 1960s, but only around 15 were recorded in 1992. The species is also considered a ‘potential breeder’ at this site. Winter counts of
Oxyura leucocephala have declined from 220 in January 1984 to fewer than 50 in 1995. In addition
Marmaronetta angustirostris was reported probably breeding ‘near El Kala’ in the 1980s (up to 50 pairs in wet years). The site regularly holds up to 50,000 wintering waterbirds (90,982 in 1992), mainly
Anas penelope,
A. clypeata,
Aythya ferina and up to 35,900
Fulica atra, as well as up to 9,000
Aythya fuligula in the 1970s. This site, together with Lac Melah (site DZ003) in previous years, is one of very few sites of international importance for
A. fuligula in Africa. Other wintering species include
Podiceps nigricollis (up to 850),
Anas acuta and
A. strepera. Many waterfowl rest here by day and move to feed on Lac Tonga (site DZ002) at night. Other breeding species include
Podiceps cristatus,
Fulica atra,
Porphyrio porphyrio and up to 100 pairs of
Acrocephalus arundinaceus. Raptors reported include
Milvus migrans,
Buteo rufinus,
Hieraaetus pennatus,
Pandion haliaetus,
Neophron percnopterus and
Circus aeruginosus.
Non-bird biodiversity: None known to BirdLife International.
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
The whole site was designated as a Ramsar Site in 1983 and it lies within the Parc National d’El Kala, designated in the same year, and within the El Kala Biosphere Reserve. There is a history of proposals to introduce
Cyprinus carpio and
Tilapia sp. into the lake to support additional commercial fisheries and in 1985 and 1986 a total of 5–6 million
Cyprinus carpio fry were introduced. There were fears that these might destroy the natural lake vegetation and upset the balance of invertebrate fauna, but in the summer of 1990 the lake became completely desiccated, killing all the introduced fry. However, in 1991 the lake was once again flooded and further introductions of carp have occurred, with unknown consequences.The Ramsar Monitoring Procedure was implemented in relation to Lac Oubeïra in 1990 (i.e. it was added to the ‘Montreux Record’). The Monitoring Procedure report concluded that the most serious long-term threat to the site is the extraction of ground and surface water in the region for the purposes of agriculture and domestic consumption (exacerbating the effects of drought in the region). Other threats include the construction of a dam on the Oued El Kebir at Mexanna to supply water to the town of El Kala (although this was considered to be more of a threat to other wetlands in the El Kala region), degradation of fringing vegetation, expansion of agriculture, grazing and urban areas and erosion leading to siltation. The report recommended that Lac Oubeïra should be made a zone of strict protection within the National Park, that extraction of ground and surface water should be strictly controlled, and that conservation management of the site should form part of a Regional Plan for wise use of land and water resources. The site was removed from the Montreux Record in 1997.
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Lac Oubeïra (Algeria). Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/lac-oubeïra-iba-algeria on 22/11/2024.
