Hybridation des rÈgles d’accÈs À l’eau souterraine dans le saiss (MAROC): Entre anarchie et LÉviathan?

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze interactions between local practices of obtaining private access to groundwater for irrigation, and public policies of groundwater management. The aquifer system in the Saiss plain in Morocco enabled the development of an intensive agriculture, supported by ambitious agricultural policies. At the same time, the River Basin Agency draws attention to the existing overexploitation of groundwater. Thus, the Saiss aquifer is at the centre of diverging strategies for the access to groundwater and the management of available water resources. We analyze the processes presiding over the construction of rules for access, use and management of the aquifer. Challenging the dualistic visions of a context of free access to water resources and unrestricted competition (anarchy) versus a situation of over-control and central planning (Leviathan), we assert that the place and the role conferred to certain actors in the literature should be re-evaluated. This is possible by considering both the local scale with its various (informal) processes for access to groundwater, and the regional scale where policies governing the agricultural development and groundwater management are implemented. Rather than a stacking of rules, we observed a hybridization of these rules.