PHYSICO-CHEMICAL ASSESSMENT OF AGRICULTURAL POLLUTION ON GROUNDWATER AND SOIL QUALITY IN AN AGRICULTURAL FARM (NORTH EASTERN MOROCCO)

摘要

To ensure sustainable food security, Morocco gives priority to agricultural and rural development by promoting investment in agricultural sector and use of intensification factors to improve incomes in rural areas. The Triffa irrigated perimeter is one of the oldest and the most productive in the country thanks to the Mohammed the V dam activity and the beginning of agricultural development intensification. Although this intensification has a positive effect on agricultural yields, it has negative impacts on soil and generates groundwater quality degradation. Indeed, recent studies performed in this area by us and Bendra (Fetouani et al., 2008; Bendra et al, 2012) have mentioned the existence of salinity problems, nitric groundwater pollution and soils salinization. This degradation is caused essentially by intensive use of agrochemicals, including nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides, and non-control of irrigation and cultivated plots drainage. However, a degradation of groundwater and soil quality is not without risk to Human health. Having a global vision about situation of groundwater and soil quality in the Triffa plain we have decided to deepen this theme to a local scale and to study in details the impact of intensive agriculture on groundwater and soil quality in a farm, located in the centre of the Triffa plain. To sum up the results of this study the state of soil quality in the farm is not alarming. However, the groundwater quality is mainly dramatic, because it is a receptacle of all the nutrients applied on the surface, especially nitrates.