Adaptation is...Protecting Coastal Communities in Northern Morocco

Morocco's rural northeast coast is increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change - sea level rise, storm surges, and coastal flooding. An international research team led by Morocco's École nationale forestière d'ingénieurs is working in two neighbouring provinces to integrate a better understanding of climate change impacts within development plans and land use guidelines to meet the region's many competing needs.Wedged between the Rif Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, the provinces of Nador and Berkane cradle a number of rural enclaves that depend on fishing, farming, and livestock raising. Centuries of isolation have preserved local language and tradition, but life is hard. Surveys in some communities show average farm household incomes of as little as CA $540 per year. Support from overseas relatives keeps many families out of poverty, but does little to create jobs.

While the southern Mediterranean may draw tourists, the coastal landscape is changing. A new highway will soon run the length of Morocco's north coast. Development pressures are destroying wetlands that act as natural buffer zones against flooding and erosion. As climate change brings more severe and frequent storms and rising seas, the very assets that attract more tourists and investment are threatened. According to Fouad Zyadi of the Environment Ministry, several Moroccan beaches have already been lost to erosion.

Farmers and pastoralists, meanwhile, are coping with less rain, even as the water table grows saline from the incursion of sea water. Water scarcity is now a chronic problem in Morocco, with several consecutive years of drought in this century. In coastal Nador and Berkane, the rains are more frequently torrential when they do come, adding to erosion of the fragile mountain soils.