Pastoral Household Adaptation to Prolonged Drought Among Amazigh Communities in Southeastern Morocco

Report Submitted to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), March 2026

Author: Stephanie Zabriskie
ORCID: 0009-0000-9273-1529
Affiliation: Humanculture (Indigenous-led nonprofit organization)
Capacity: Founder and Executive Director

Abstract

Amazigh pastoral households in southeastern Morocco developed a set of community-based adaptation strategies in response to a seven-year drought period spanning approximately 2018 to 2026 — one of the most prolonged drought events in recent regional recorded history. As desert groundwater sources failed and traditional nomadic mobility routes became unsustainable, several dozen households concentrated near Merzouga, where informal access to municipal water infrastructure associated with tourist desert camp operations allowed household and livestock survival to continue. Households restructured their livestock holdings from camels to goats, reflecting a rational reduction in water and forage dependency, and supplemented livestock feed using organic remnants from nearby camp operations. Critically, households maintained nomadic housing, social structures, and pastoral identity throughout, representing a temporary concentration of mobility rather than a transition to sedentary life. Women’s labor was central to daily water security, involving foot and donkey travel to collect water for both human and livestock use. Although Morocco declared the drought officially over in early 2026, groundwater recharge and forage recovery in the region have not yet occurred, and many households remain in adapted configurations while monitoring ecological conditions. These strategies offer transferable lessons for understanding pastoral household resilience under sustained climate stress in arid and semi-arid regions globally.

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Pastoral Household Adaptation to Prolonged Drought Among Amazigh Communities in Southeastern Morocco