No abstract

The water resources of the Taza region are diverse and consist of important surface water and groundwater resources. The area is part of the most important groundwater reserves of Morocco. Recently, the region was prone to many flood events where remarkable fluctuations of rainfall and extreme climatic events have been observed. However, there is a lack of studies that cover the different hydrologic aspects of the area and especially, the extreme hydrologic events of the Taza River watershed in which the Taza city is located. To cover this lack, the current study presents an overview of the watershed, including geology, climatology, hydrogeology, geomorphology and especially hydrology. The study focused on the determination of the extreme hydrologic events related to extreme rainfall and streamflow to present basic data sets for further studies. Despite the data scarcity, complexity and the intricate river drainage network of the region, we were able to represent the main hydrologic aspect of the watershed and understand and predicting the system behavior. It was found that the area can be prone to flood risk because of the high flow rates that were calculated using meteorological and hydrological models. In addition, it was found that the basin land use affects directly the hydrodynamic of the river and thus, influence the flood magnitude. The study provides valuable information for understanding the watershed hydrology with a detail never presented before for the study area, where researchers and decision makers can benefit from the outcomes of the study and carry out further assessing the resilience of the watershed to anthropogenic pressure and climate change.