Box 3.
Groundwater governance in Morocco: the crisis in a coastal aquifer
Morocco’s 1,200 km2 coastal Chaouia region has emerged as a zone of tension between farmers’ survival and the sustainability of aquifers. Groundwater irrigation has grown threefold between 1970 and 1996. Many farmers rented or purchased land and drilled boreholes while some set up partnerships with neighbours who owned a usable borehole. As result, groundwater overdraft is growing in Souss, Tadla, Berrchid, and Saiss. In the Chaouia aquifer, the overdraft has led to saline intrusion and fresh groundwater has become increasingly scarce making irrigation difficult. The annual groundwater deficit in the aquifer is some 10 million m3 and to date there is no sign of this easing. Some farmers have installed pipelines to draw water from the Oum Rbia River some distance away to try and augment the supply. One farmer installed a distillation plant to clean up saline groundwater to irrigate cut-flowers for export.
During the 1980s, and as recently as 2010, local authorities have tried to control excessive borehole drilling. However, a series of droughts so threatened the local economy that the regulations were abandoned. Two catchment management agencies are responsible for managing the aquifer. But in reality all these agencies can do is to monitor piezometric and salinity levels. Supporting adaptation of the aquifer economy to a groundwater crisis has persisted as a ‘wicked problem’ with no perfect problem formulation or a clear-cut first-best solution.