Site selection
This region was selected because despite its location in the more favourable lands of Morocco in terms of climatic conditions, it consists of marginal land with a high poverty and important indicators of degradation.
Desertification is both related to natural factors (vulnerability) and to human factors (poverty, mismanagement). It is exacerbated by events of drought which create new factors of vulnerability.
In the semi-arid regions of Morocco, namely in the regions where SWC techniques are absent or rare, the vulnerability of the land is very high. It incorporates three dimensions, a hydric dimension with the increase of water table depth, an agrarian one with the decrease of yields, and an environmental one with the decreasing quality of the soils and the increase of erosion.
In these regions, there is a high risk of water scarcity and of an exacerbated competition between irrigation and water supply for the cities. The risk of natural catastrophes (floods, soil erosion) is also very high. The rapid urbanisation increases these risks, in relation with the land withdrawal, the water needs, the transformation of the sub-urban agriculture (extension of irrigation, choice of highly water-consuming crops) and the emergence of new activities, as tourism.
In these regions, land management is often inadequate, with practices that accentuate the land vulnerability. The current transformations can exaggerate the hydric dynamics, namely runoff and erosion, because of the absence of appropriate techniques for water storage and water use during excessive rain events.
The colonial rupture and the modernisation of techniques are also responsible for this situation, such as mechanisation which sometimes was not well adapted to the local situation.
