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The first data recorded on the aquatic underground fauna of the South Moroccan Anti-Atlas are reported. More than 50 biotopes, wells, springs and river underflows, have been prospected in this Saharian province with a semi-continental climate. The fauna and ecology of seven wells and two springs, stygobiologically interesting, have been regularly investigated for two years. These nine stations are described briefly (geographic and topographic location, hydrogeology and physicochemical characteristics of the water) as well as their zoocenoses. The fauna of interstitial and karstic waters includes 59 taxa, 11 of which are stygobiontic. The study is focused mainly on the Peracarid Crustacea : Thermosbaenacea, Amphipoda Metacrangonyctidae, Isopoda Cirolanidae and Stenasellidae. Some remarks are added on the ecology of these species and a paleobiogeographic hypothesis is proposed.

Keywords: Stygobiology, wells, springs, coenotic affinities, biogeography, Morocco

Information professionals, including all of their academic and professional diversity (archivists, document managers, librarians, information monitors, etc.) are responsible for the management of information, regardless of its form and format in order to underscore value in the decision-making process, be it in the administrative, economic or social and cultural domains. Continuing social changes force information professionals to be part of an association that promotes them and their contribution to the information sciences. This is the role of the professional associations. The following article outlines the information sciences professionals in Morocco, namely the Association nationale des informatistes.

Various factors such as relocation of poor populations policies, promotion of land rights privatization, and, more generally, economic growth fostered urban sprawl in main Maghreb cities, including Meknès, Morocco. This urbanization increases at the expense of high potential agricultural land, despite preservation laws for agricultural land. In Meknes, family farmers settled in city outskirts provided most of building land. This article presents the diversity of land tenure strategies adopted by these farmers. It shows that they take into account the new actors game, as well as actors' resistance or negotiation skills. For a majority of farmers who owned their plots, selling land allowed to invest in various sectors (transport, trade, etc.); sometimes they have invested in agriculture too, in situ or through purchasing of land away from the city. A minority preferred to keep their land to avoid sale to intermediaries and adopt a speculative strategy. Instead, farmers using collective land without private property rights, have only defense or conflict strategies; they are in a context where their ability to negotiate prices or refuse the transfer is virtually nil. More generally, these speculative processes favor land purchase throughout the plain by investors and neo-farmers in both peri-urban and rural areas. Increase of fertile land price in the periurban zone induces a similar increase for similar land in rural areas; thus it weakens family farming in Morocco as this category of farmers cannot oppose investors and large landowners.

Keywords: agriculture périurbaine, urbanisation, stratégies foncières, Meknès, Maroc, urban agriculture, land issues, farmers' strategies, Meknes, Morocco

Ce travail propose une analyse sur le rôle des renégats, soit des Européens convertis à l'Islam, dans le processus de modernisation et d'établissement d'un État au Maroc. Ce mémoire s'inscrit en continuité avec l'historiographie déjà présente dans le domaine des captifs européens, de la course et du phénomène de conversion à l'Islam, qui existait dans le bassin méditerranéen du 15e siècle au 19e siècle. Les écrits de nombreux auteurs furent mis à contribution ainsi que plusieurs sources de divers ordres: écrits en arabe traduits, missives d'agents européens ou de missionnaires et récits d'aventuriers ou de captifs présents au Maroc. L'effort de compréhension du rôle des renégats au Maroc nécessite la définition de l'identité des renégats, de leur nature et de leur statut social dans une …

AbstractThe objective of the present study was to monitor and simulate the water and sediment balance in a small dam, by using a distributed physical hydrological model to estimate the outflow and the erosion rate of a small marl watershed.The “Mina” model was applied to the Saboun watershed, which is located in north-western Morocco and contains a small dam at its outlet. The simulation was based on the partitioning of the watershed into homogeneous hydrological units, and on infiltration and humidity parameter values deduced from rainfall simulation experiments. The model was validated by comparing the simulated data to hydrological and sedimentation data measured between 1997 and 1999.The analysis of this comparison showed that the model underestimated the watershed outflows for rainfall events that had a high antecedent humidity index (IK > 15 mm), and overestimated the outflows for rainfall events that had a low antecedent humidity index 0 < IK < 15 mm. This observation is explained by the hydrodynamic behaviour of the marl soils, which crack under dry conditions and fill up quickly during wet conditions. To reduce this variability, the initial permeability values were decreased or increased, respectively, for the rainfall events with low and high antecedent humidity indexes. This resulted in the improvement of simulated volumes by about 80% and a better prediction of the water balance and accumulation of silt in the reservoir upstream from the Saboun dam.

Keywords: barrage collinaire, simulation, bilan hydro–sédimentaire, écoulement, envasement, sols marneux, infiltration, small dam, simulation, sediment and hydrological balance, outflow, marl soils, infiltration