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Abstract

Water erosion is a critical issue for Morocco, especially in its semi-arid regions, where climatic and edaphic conditions only allow erratic soil formation and vegetation growth. Therefore, water erosion endangers human activity both directly (loss of arable land, landslides, mudflows) and indirectly (siltation of dams, river pollution). This study is part of the Kingdom’s effort to assess the risk of water erosion in its territory. It is dedicated to the Bin El-Ouidane dam water catchment, one of the biggest water storage facilities in the country, located in the High Atlas Mountains. The poorly developed soils are very sensitive to erosion in this mountainous area that combines steep slopes and sparse vegetation cover. The calculation of soil losses is carried out with the RUSLE model and corrected by estimating areas of deposition based on the unit stream power theory. This method produces a mean erosion rate of around 6.3 t·ha -1·y -1, or an overall annual loss of 4.1 mln t, consistently with the siltation rate of the dam. Primary risk areas (erosion rates > 40 t·ha -1·y -1) account for 54% of the total losses, while they cover only 7% of the catchment. This distribution of the soil losses also shows that the erosion risk is mainly correlated to slope, directing the means of control toward mechanical interventions.
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Authors and Affiliations

Wafae Nouaim
1
ORCID: ORCID
Dimitri Rambourg
2
ORCID: ORCID
Abderrazak El Harti
1
ORCID: ORCID
Ettaqy Abderrahim
3
ORCID: ORCID
Mohamed Merzouki
1
ORCID: ORCID
Ismail Karaoui
1
ORCID: ORCID

  1. University Sultan Moulay Slimane, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Team of Remote Sensing and GIS Applied to Geosciences and Environment, Av Med V, BP 591, Beni-Mellal 23000, Morocco
  2. Université de Strasbourg, CNRS/EOST, ITES UMR 7063, Institut Terre et Environnement de Strasbourg, France
  3. University Sultan Moulay Slimane, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Environmental, Ecological and Agro-industrial Engineering Laboratory, Beni-Mellal, Morocco

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