Soil water erosion assessment in Morocco through modeling and fingerprinting applications: A review.

During the last century, a great deal of effort has been directed toward determining soil erosion rates using various methods under a wide range of climatic conditions, soil types, land uses, topography, and among others. Therefore, to better understand soil erosion studies in Morocco, a country with diverse physiography and climatic variations we undertook an analysis of national data of several soil erosion modeling and fingerprinting. The approach used for this research is a review of scientific articles, conference papers and thesis on soil erosion, focusing more on categorization of the different soil erosion models and other methods applied. The results reveal very interesting information as follows: (i) the distribution and frequency level of modeling and fingerprinting applications; the focus was on the north of the country: (Rif 32.89%, High Atlas 32.89%, Occidental Meseta 18.43% and Middle Atlas 10.53%), (ii) The (R) USLE models remain the most widely used models (51,32%) in Morocco, (iii) The support practice factor was severely lacking across the country, (iv) the highest erosion rate is concentrated in the Atlas and Rif mountains; and (v) a positive relationship between erosion rate and geological features, slope, climate, land use and cover, plus other environmental characteristics, as well as measurement and modeling conditions, and a negative relationship with the study areas size and scale. Even though the overall results show a high degree of variability, which cannot be explained by this combination of factors, but is at a minimum partly related to the experimental conditions. This overview research and database are designed to assist in the future assessment of soil erosion and to help define priorities for soil erosion research by providing a state of art for future focused and comprehensive analyses to address this issue of soil erosion in Morocco.

Assessment of medical and pharmaceutical waste flows during the coronavirus pandemic in the Rabat-Sale-Kenitra region, Morocco.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented difficulties for health care institutions, which are required to manage not only the flow of patients with COVID-19, but also the management of medical and pharmaceutical waste (MPW). At the level of Morocco, the waste produced by hospitals has risen sharply in the regions most affected by the virus, such as the Rabat-Sale-Kenitra region (15.05% of recorded cases). The objective of this study is to perform a descriptive statistical analysis and to evaluate the generation rates of MPW generated during the treatment of the coronavirus pandemic, with reference to a large health care hospital in the region, in order to enable decision-makers to adopt responses in terms of regular and continuous management of MPW. The Moulay Abdellah hospital in Sale has a bedding capacity allocated to the COVID-19 patient of 110 beds with a Average Occupation Rate (AOR) of 100% and an average production of 13tons per month. The study showed that the average rate of MPW generated is 4 kg per bed per day, which is twice as high as the average generation rate during normal operation in 2019. As well, frequency analysis of the data revealed that MPW generation follows a log normal distribution with a correlation coefficient of 0.9. The distribution is skewed to the right and flatter than the normal distribution curve as judged by the skewness coefficient which is 0.87 and kurtosis coefficient which has a value of 1.286, indicating a deviation from normality.

Pretreatment of industrial wastewater by natural flotation: application to pollution reduction from vegetable oil refinery wastewaters.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the natural flotation process in reducing pollution with reasonable investment and operating costs of an industrial effluent of refining vegetable oils. Flotation tests were carried out in separating funnels and in drums of 30 l. The results obtained have shown that the volume of sludge produced during flotation is related to the pollutant load of the wastewater studied (process wastewater and acidic wastewater). The sludge volume is respectively 600, 12, and 120 ml/l for heavy, light, and medium loads respectively. Therefore, it is essential to find an effective way to remove oils and greases from polluted waters. Natural flotation eliminates on average 88% of COD for acid wastewater and 50% for process wastewater. However, the reduction of BOD5 showed 28 and 43% respectively for acid wastewater and process wastewater. In addition, the yield of fats and oils, TSS, and turbidity varies around 85%, 45%, and 88% respectively for acidic wastewater, while for process wastewater, elimination yields vary around 58%, 46%, and 46% respectively for the grease and oil parameters, the MES, and the turbidity. Flotation allows the elimination of 10659 Kg/day of greases and oils for process wastewater while it eliminates 5765 Kg/day for acidic wastewater. This reduces the cost of treatment related to chemicals and energy. Reducing pollution of wastewater by natural flotation could therefore help reduce the costs of treating wastewater, and recycling would then be more attractive for this purpose for the company.