Monetary Value Change of Some Provisioning Ecosystem Services of Middle Draa Valley, South of Morocco

Study Area

The study area, located in the south east of Morocco, with an area of about 15 000 km² (Figure 1). Hydrologically is the middle part of the Draa Basin. It is subject to an arid climate, the summer temperatures are between 43 and 50 ° C and The mean annual rainfall is about 80 mm.

Figure 1.

Localization of the study Area; MDV, Middle Draa Valley

Along the MDV, the greenery oasis agro-ecosystem extends over 26 000 ha in a pre-Saharan environment (Karmaoui et al., 2014a). Its cultivation largely depends on the inflow of water from the outside. Mountains, plains, and desert plateaus are exploited mainly for pastoral purposes. The climate is arid climate and belongs to the Saharan bioclimatic stage. The average annual rainfall is very low and decreases from upstream 108 mm (Agdez) to downstream, 74 mm in Zagora (MPZ, 2014). In addition to agriculture, the tourism is the second economic sector in this area. However, in the period between 2009 and 2014, a continuous decrease in the number of tourists was observed (Figure 2) for unknown reasons.

Figure 2.

Number of overnight stays in Middle Draa Valley

Source: (Authors using data from MPZ, (2014)

In this area, the ES with available data and highest importance were identified, gathered, and classified in order to evaluate.