Weighting of water resources vulnerability factors in the context of global environmental change in the Sebou basin: case of Fez, Ifrane and Meknes perimeters (Morocco)

Abstract

Water resources are at the center of all developments, whether it is a society or a living organism. It is rightly noted that the state of water resources around the world is no longer, what it once was because of the strong pressures resulting from global environmental change and human activities. Undertaking vulnerability assessments of water resources is a necessary and rapid need to spatially delineate the areas likely to be impacted. The main purpose of this study is to identify with water resource management experts a set of factors considered relevant, and to know the relative contribution of each factor in terms of vulnerability. To this end, the opinions of 32 water resource management experts were collected in order to define and weigh the factors of water resource vulnerability in the Sebou basin. The result of this survey shows that 25 factors divided into 5 components (hydrology, pollution, socioeconomics, environment, and eco-environment) of vulnerabilities are likely to affect the state of water resources in the area. The application of multiple factor analysis under R software for data processing to reduce dimensions has shown that 15 out of the 25 factors are the most important in terms of water resource vulnerabilities according to experts' opinion. The weights of these 15 factors and the 5 components of water resources vulnerability are different from each other, which highlights the relative nature of water resources vulnerability. This can help water managers to be more effective and relevant in water resource vulnerability analysis tools.