Impact of agricultural development policies on land use, water resources and rural livelihoods in the semi-arid environment of Souss Basin in Morocco.

While Morocco faces extreme water shortage (<500m³/cap), agricultural development policies intend to improve the agri-business sector focusing on global competitiveness and export-oriented crops. However, in vulnerable environments (e.g Souss basin) these policies contributed to exacerbation of the water crisis. Based on land use dynamics, water resources monitoring and field interviews with farmers and rural water users, our study draws a state of art of the situation and discusses the findings. Despite the fact of some short-lasting gain from these policies, land use data indicates an expansion of irrigated land from 618.96 sq km in 2002 to 1413.3 sq km in 2012 due to incentives from Green Morocco Plan (GMP). As a result of increase of water demand for irrigation coupled with extreme drought periods, the data of groundwater shows a dramatic depletion of groundwater, the strategic resource for livelihoods and drought resilience. Furthermore, learning from the field reveals the inconvenience of intensive export-oriented agriculture in a drought prone environment. In addition, farmers' perspectives and adaptation strategies indicate the importance of participatory and community-based management of natural resources. Therefore, the study demonstrates the importance of inclusion of socio-environmental vulnerabilities in agriculture development planning.