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Photo by James Whitlow Delano @jameswhitlowdelano for @everydayclimatechange
Sharing the series: “Morocco’s Climate Crisis: A Rising Tide of Saharan Sands is Burying the Last Drought-Stricken Oasis in the Valley of Draa.”
1. Sandstorm rips up a dry wadi that has not seen any water for years, delivering sand from the Sahara. Every year, in the past, this wadi would fill will water seasonally but no longer with the climate crisis meaning less rain here and in the Atlas Mountains from where this wadi begins and because of the the al-Mansour Eddahbi Dam, built in 1971/72, at the base of the Atlas Mountains.
The dam was supposed to provide better water management by regular releases of water from the dam for communities. Before 1972, the Wadi Draa River, its source in the Atlas Mountains, would run all the way down through the Valley of Draa, beyond M'Hamid and discharge in the now completely dry Lake Iriki, a former seasonal wetland. After 1972, there would be periodic releases from the dam, with certain amounts of surface water distributed to each village down the valley, M'Hamid being the last. The dam's sluice gates were said to open seven times a year but most older residents remember water filling irrigation ditches, that are now filled with Sahara sand, opening three or four times a year. From 1972 - 2002, sufficient filling of the dam's reservoir, to fullfill the demands of agriculture in the valley, was only been achieved 13 out of 30 years, according to a 2016 report by the University of Bonn.
2. Man braces against the wind in a sandstorm in Zwaya village, part of the M'Hamid's oasis, as it delivers sands from the Sahara on former agricultural land. Morocco
#climatechane #climatrcrisis #sahara #drought #morocco #maghreb #northafrica
