0
0
0
Photos by James Whitlow Delano @jameswhitlowdelano for @everydayclimatechange:
This horrific earthquake has focused attention Morocco, a vulnerable country to far more than seismic events. The climate crisis is bearing down hard on this country, sitting on the western extreme of the Sahara.
1. Small fields of wheat, irrigated by water from a solar powered pump drawn from a 15 meter deep well, are planted amid sand dunes which are encroaching upon the palmeraie oasis of M'Hamid. Morocco This palmeraie is drying out due to the the climate crisis and a dam build at the top of the valley at the base of the Atlas Mountains.
2. Sand dunes pile up against low walls that demarcate former agricultural fields at the edge of the original ksar, fortified town, of M'Hamid El Ghizlane. Windblown sand from the Sahara began burying the fields and the date palms began to die in the early 1990's in this area that was entirely given over to agriculture but human-induced climate change, and the construction of a dam near at the base of the Atlas Mountains has meant that this oasis is drying out. Morocco
Several years have passed without there being any surface water in the Oued Draa, which would have water, even fish, for several months every year a few decades ago. There is less rainfall in M'Hamid due to the climate crisis but, as important, the al-Mansour Eddahbi Dam, built in 1971/72, at the base of the Atlas Mountains, 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, was a seasonal river. Now it is simply dry.
#climatecrisis #globalwarming #climatechange #water #oasis #drought #sahara #morocco #mhamid
