The plateau, on the documents
Episodes in this series
Five instalments, from the intake to the shut-off, holding one question from first to last: who decides the plateau's water?
This is not a story about drought. It is a story about the chain of decision that drought makes visible — the map of responsibilities, the fact that forces the issue, the vote, those who absorb it, and the private spring that proves the rule by escaping it.
March to June 2026. No instalment ends on an appeal to individual responsibility: water is treated as a question of governance.
2 articles
Intake, treatment, distribution, sewerage, water policing: five tiers decide the plateau's water, and none of them can tell the other four what to do. First of a five-part series, from the intake to the shut-off.
Written by Hakim Zerrouki
41 % full on 12 August, the lowest reading since 1976. The operator of the Fauge dam refused the release three villages were asking for. He had no choice, and nobody had read the rule that forbade it.
Written by Ana-Lucia Ferreiro