It is the most important and longest river in Tunisia and is dammed in several locations, being a major supplier of water to the country's wheat crops.

Besides morphological ground observations, aerial and satellite photographs have been used to analyze how the landscape has evolved over the past 3,000 years.

[3] Historically the Medjerda is Tunisia's crucial waterway providing fresh water to the country’s population centers.

A strategic resource, it was fought over and settled many times by the Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, and the Ottomans.

The former ports of Utica and Ghar el-Melh (Rusucmona or Porto Farina) were eventually closed by the silting of their harbors.