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Typology of drought and research on drought warning indices in Moroccan semiarid areas Volume 9, issue 4, Décembre 1998

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  • Page(s) : 269
  • Published in: 1999

The development and progress of agriculture in semiarid areas of Morocco requires a full understanding of these environments. This includes factors that have an impact on the crops grown (mainly cereals). The highly variable climatic conditions is the main feature of arid and semiarid regions. Drought occurs every 2 to 3 years, thus masking other constraints to agricultural development. This phenomenon should be better described to enable the development of strategies for controlling drought. Drought has not yet been thoroughly investigated, despite its prevalence. The first essential step is to develop a typology of agricultural drought that takes interactions between rainfall deficit and crop growth and development into account. Different forms of drought could thus be identified, while assessing the probability of occurrence of each form.