GWI: Focusing in on Morocco

GWI: Focusing in on Morocco

I have just come back from a week in Morocco, during which I drove 4 hours across the country. I was amazed at the stark contrast in landscape from what I am used to in the UK, especially from where I live in the Cotswolds. As a result of this trip, I have decided to focus this week’s blog specifically on Morocco. I will be focusing on some of the topics that have been discussed in the past two blogs, linking them to explicit examples.

Morocco is situated on the north west coast of Africa, just a short ferry away from the south end of Mainland Europe. It is the 10^th most developed country in Africa with an HDI comparable to Iraq and India (United Nations HDI Reports, 2017). 22.1% of the land in Morocco is arable (excluding the Western Sahara), 43% of arable land is devoted to cereals, 7% to plantation crops and 42% was fallow (Nations Encyclopaedia). Fallow farmland is ploughed and harrowed but left for a period without being sown in order to restore its fertility. Agriculture accounts for 16% of the GDP of Morocco.

There has been a history of dams and irrigation projects since French colonisation and these projects have continued with various levels of success since independence. In traditional areas, predominantly occupied by subsistence farmers, irrigation systems consist of springs and wells or diversion of streams. Where Morocco’s major rivers flow, mainly in the north west of the country that receives a Mediterranean climate, dams and irrigation projects account for over 50% of the country’s water resources (Nations Encyclopaedia).  There is a history of grants and development funds to finance irrigation projects, often in the more arid regions of Southern Morocco. In 1994, the Kuwaiti Economic Development Fund lent $60 million, a loan that served over 200,000 small farmers.

A photo I took on my trip, which I believe illustrates the harsh reality of the landscape

Morocco has over 3.2 million acres of irrigated agricultural land, and to encourage modernisation of traditional sectors, the Agricultural Investment Code of 1969 was set in place to ensure that farmers of irrigate land could meet an efficiency quota and would risk losing their land if not (Daoud and Engler, 1981).

There are 6 main hydrogeological areas in Morocco, containing 103 aquifers of variable importance. All of the aquifers are experiencing some degree of stress, due to a combination of over-abstraction and low or diverted rainfall resulting in a reduced recharge rate (Earthwise Hydrology, 2019). The quality of the groundwater in these aquifers are also declining from saline intrusion and nitrate fertiliser pollution. One method of management for some of the more ‘development-critical’ aquifers is artificial recharge. This is carried out by the Moroccan Department of Water and has the ability to restore the balance of the aquifers and also slow down the progress of saline intrusion (CIRAD, 2014). At a national level there are 24 aquifers that are so overexploited that artificial recharge is the only way to mitigate the deficit.

In Souss‐Massa, a southern region of the country, assessments into the risks of soil degradation from the saline groundwater are being completed. The semi-arid and arid regions that require irrigation are also more susceptible to saline intrusion as the increased temperatures produce high evaporation in the soil, concentrating any saline soil solution (El Oumlouki et al, 2018). Whilst sustainable management strategies are available, the conditions are harsh, and it is difficult to implement them with low funds. One of the strategies that can provide improvement with minimal change is employing cyclic strategies to irrigate crops in a rotation. The crops are irrigated with freshwater until they reach a salt-tolerant life stage, they are then subsequently irrigated with the saline water. However more fundamentally, management strategies should focus more on the source of the problem which is the human-led overuse and overexploitation (FAO, 2009).

I hope this blog has provided a more specific look into a few of the topics we have already discussed. As always, thanks for reading!