Carving the landscape

Gully erosion dissects a large sediment fan emerging from the High Atlas into the Souss Basin, Morocco. Opposite older gully systems at the left wadi bank near La Glalcha village, a new gully system at the right wadi bank has developed during heavy rainfalls in February 2010, cutting 5 m deep into recent infillings of an older system which can still be traced by the dried weed cover: The land-levelling measures, intended to regain badland for a tomato plantation, have only resulted in reactivation of an abating sediment source.