ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF QUARRYING IN THE PROVINCE OF SIDI BENNOUR (DOUKKALA, MOROCCO)

In recent years, Morocco started boosting the construction sector and public works with a lineup of major projects. This creates a strong market demand for building materials, raw materials, and natural resources including quarry products. The quarries identified in Morocco are: sand, silt, limestone, calcarenite, clay, marble, and stone. However, regulation of the activity is at its beginning. Laws concerning the quarrying and assessing the impact of the environment have tried to organize the sector, but could not compete against the massive phenomenon of uncontrolled exploitation. Indeed, the quarrying sector in Morocco has overexploited the environment. After stopping the operation, quarries are easily abandoned and rapidly converted into waste dumps or slums, especially when they are operated by cooperatives or small private companies that ignore the environmental side and privilege the economic side.

In the province of Sidi Bennour (Region of Doukkala), most quarries are often used at random, and harm the environment. Before the operation of the quarry, the decision to operate is often taken in respect of the technical and land boundaries, but the environmental dimension and losses from this activity are rarely considered. Especially when operation does not follow the rules, the damage to the environment is of high importance (noise pollution, air pollution, biological pollution, landscape degradation). Regarding water pollution, the risk is the disturbance of the hydrodynamic conditions of the environment and pollution of surface and groundwater. Runoff may contain materials from quarrying operations and possibly contaminate surface water and groundwater by fuel and lubricating oils during the functioning of machines.

Given this situation, Environmental Impact Assessment is now essential to protect the environment against adverse effects of quarrying. In fact, to manage this alarming problem, GIS tools like ArcGIS are very important to determine the distribution of quarries, and also the type of quarries in provinces. Thus we can distinguish between abandoned quarries and active quarries, control their operation, choose the most appropriate alternatives, prevent pollution and use the best methods and techniques to reduce the scale of impacts.