Landscape • history • living memory
Lake Iriki: The Desert Lake That Returned in 2024
Lake Iriki, also written Iriqui, is a place of striking contrasts in southern Morocco. Between Foum Zguid and M’Hamid, its broad basin can look like an endless dry plain. After exceptional rain, that same landscape can hold water again. Understanding Iriki means looking beyond a single photograph: its story connects seasonal floods, decades of change, local memories and a remarkable return of water in September 2024.
Before the dry decades: a seasonal wetland
Iriki was never simply a lake with an unchanging shoreline. A 2025 ornithological report describes alternating dryness and major Drâa floods in the 1950s–1960s, including prolonged inundation in 1955–1956 and a refill in 1965. [3]
These records matter because “dry for fifty years” is an oversimplification if it suggests that no water ever reached the basin during that entire period. The more careful description is a long period dominated by dryness, interrupted by occasional flooding.
Did people once fish in Lake Iriki?
Local oral history recalls people fishing in Iriki during wetter years more than half a century ago. We include that memory as local testimony, without assigning an exact year, claiming a permanent commercial fishery or describing boats and fishing methods that we cannot independently document.
A published account recounts local fishing as floodwater receded in 2011, attributing this observation to T. Slimani through personal communication. This documents a later episode, not the date of the older memories. [3]
Why did the lake become so dry?
Several changes form part of the story. The Mansour Eddahbi Dam entered service in 1972, according to Morocco’s High Commission for Planning. [4] The 2025 field report links the reservoir’s retention of water with much rarer inundation downstream at Iriki. [3]
The scientific study published in Land also describes sand encroachment and shifts in shallow channels that can divert water away from the basin. Iriki’s hydrology therefore cannot be explained by the dam alone: river connections, aridity and the movement of sediment all matter. [2]
September 2024: when the water returned
The first major event occurred on 7–8 September 2024. NASA’s Earth Observatory documented an extratropical storm crossing the northwestern Sahara and showed normally dry basins filling, including one in Iriqui National Park. Its report was published on 14 September 2024. [1]
A second storm episode followed on 20–21 September 2024. Researchers combined satellite images with field visits to study the lake’s revival. Their first expedition confirmed water on 15 September, while a second mission in late October examined the returning ecosystem. The study also identified important inflows arriving from northern mountain watercourses. [2]
This was a major return of water, but it did not turn Iriki into a permanently full lake. A flooded desert basin remains sensitive to the next dry period.
When did the water disappear again?
The recession was gradual. The scientific study detected decreasing water coverage during October 2024 and discusses drainage, infiltration and evaporation as contributing processes. [2] Later field observations provide a clearer timeline through winter:
- 16–18 January 2025: observers recorded a well-watered lake and green surroundings.
- 19–20 February 2025: the remaining water surface had shrunk considerably.
- 3 March 2025: the lake was described as almost dry again. [3]
“Almost dry” is not a precisely documented date when the last pool vanished. Our November 2026 local update reports a dry lakebed today; the scientific and field sources above document the earlier return and recession, rather than independently verifying every day since then.
Visiting Iriki today
Come for the open landscape and its history, with an understanding that the appearance of the basin changes. A dry visit can reveal the scale of the plain, distant relief and the quiet between the oasis towns and the dunes. A wet episode offers a very different experience, but cannot be scheduled or guaranteed.
Plan your route with recent local information. Keep vehicles on established tracks, avoid driving onto soft or recently flooded ground, and give wildlife space. To explore the region with our team, see our desert journeys or contact us for current conditions.
Sources & editorial notes
- NASA Earth Observatory — A Deluge for the Sahara, 14 September 2024. Satellite context for the 7–8 September storm and flooding.
- Moumane et al. — Lake Iriqui’s Remarkable Revival, Land 14(1), 104, 2025. Fieldwork and satellite analysis of the 2024 refilling and recession.
- Bergier, Bousadik, Benhoussa, Bakass, Noughou & Qninba — Excursions à l’Iriki, hiver 2024–2025, Éléments d’Ornithologie Marocaine, eom25035, 18 pages, 2025. Historical context, the attributed 2011 fishing account and observations through March 2025.
- High Commission for Planning, Morocco — Grands barrages du Maroc. Official table listing 1972 as the commissioning year of Mansour Eddahbi.
Researched and updated on 8 November 2026. Older fishing memories and today’s dry condition are identified as local testimony. The supplied images are illustrations, not dated documentary evidence of the 2024 floods or present water levels.
