Low water flows and interannual variability of precipitation in the upper Sebou (Middle Atlas, Morocco): A major challenge facing water resource management

Résumé

Given the climate change and increased anthropogenic pressure, problems related to water scarcity are becoming a serious challenge. Furthermore, the absence of legislative acts dealing with low-water flows constitutes a significant limitation to an effective governance of water management in Morocco.  Low water level as well as low flow are related to the groundwater resource. Therefore, to the "ultimate" or lower threshold of the water resource available in a watershed. For this reason, the statistical analysis of these data is crucial for a rational use and for an optimal management of the resource, avoiding long-term imbalance. In addition, the understanding of the depletion phenomenon, leading to low water flow, and its relationship with annual rainfall, provide the keys to efficient and predictive water resource management for strategic basins. This contribution presents a statistical analysis of the low water flows of upper Sebou based on the flows recorded at the Azzaba and Pont of Mdez stream gauges. The reason for the selection of these two stream gauges is motivated by the long-term observation records and the high quality of the data compared to the other stream gauges.