Compounding social-ecological crises drive spatial mobility and land abandonment in Morocco’s High Atlas

Drought and water insecurity are escalating crises that shape dryland farmers' mobility and land abandonment decisions. In this study, we appraised the causes of such decisions through 75 qualitative interviews and six group discussions with residents of rural Amazigh communities in Morocco's High Atlas. We identified a multi-faceted crises nexus, where water scarcity exacerbates economic and value-related crises and personal insecurities, leading to a crisis of confidence in traditional rural lifeways. Increasingly multi-local household structures and intersectional attributes mediate actors' experiences, as illustrated by a typology we present. While some actors experienced immobility as a hardship, other desired to stay, underscoring the continued importance of tamazirt-an Amazigh concept linking land and home-as a promising anchor for land-futures thinking. By addressing evidence gaps on the role of crises and intersectional characteristics in dryland decision-making, our study offers insights for rural development planning and policy in the southern Mediterranean.