Abdelghani Boudhar, Abdessamad Hadri, Youssef Lebrini, Ismaguil Hanadé Houmma, Ismail Karaoui, El Mahdi El Khalki , Jamal-eddine Ouzemou, Christophe Kinnard
IWRI-UM6P & RIVE-UQTR
Email Address: sabir.oussaoui@um6p.ma
Since 2019, the irrigated regions of Tadla and Lower Tassaout in Morocco have experienced severe droughts, peaking in September 2021.
These extreme events have had significant negative impacts on agricultural systems, resulting in the loss of approximately 2,121 ha of citrus orchards and severe damage to 12,127 ha of olive groves (Oussaoui et al. 2025).
Groundwater and spring-based irrigation helped preserve 5,298 ha of olive trees and 7,216 ha of citrus orchards. However, this increased reliance on groundwater has exacerbated the notable decline in groundwater storage (Hanadé Houmma et al. 2025).
At present, the potential of machine learning models combined with very high spatial resolution geospatial technologies remains largely underexploited for mapping the spatial extent of the impacts of these droughts and analyzing the biophysical response of affected agrosystems.