The scarcity of water resources threatens Morocco with drought.. How does the government act?

RABAT

About 40 kilometers from the capital, Rabat, Moroccan Yassine Marchich owns a small farm in the "Sidi Yahya Zaer" region, where he raises livestock and grows subsistence crops.

Yassin relies on well water for irrigation and drinking, but he seemed afraid of the coming days due to the scarcity of water and the dry season.

He tells Al Jazeera Net that the situation gets worse in the summer due to the lack of water, which makes the residents resort to the waters of the dam near them or to buy water tanks.

Yassin says, "The community (the municipality) gives us water tanks with a capacity of 5 tons, and we pay for transporting them, and sometimes we buy private water tanks for 300 dirhams (about $30) for an 8-ton tank."

Yassin expects that next summer will be difficult for farmers due to the dry season, which the country has not witnessed for decades, as it is inevitable that his well and neighboring wells will dry up. However, he hopes that the authorities will take proactive solutions before they find themselves without water, pasture for their livestock and without work.

Weak water resources

Water resources in Morocco are among the weakest in the world, as it is among the countries with the lowest percentage of water per person, according to official data of the Ministry of Equipment and Water. Water resources in Morocco are estimated at 22 billion cubic meters per year.

The surface water resources of the total national territory are estimated in the average year at 18 billion cubic meters, and range according to the years from 5 billion cubic meters to 50 billion cubic meters.

Groundwater represents about 20% of the water resources available in the Kingdom. Currently, the exploitable groundwater reserves amount to 4.2 billion cubic meters per year.

Morocco currently has 149 large dams with a storage capacity of more than 19 billion cubic meters, medium and small dams, and seawater desalination projects in 9 plants that fill 147 million cubic meters per year, in addition to thousands of wells and boreholes to fill groundwater.

However, the drought affected these water resources. For example, the water stock of dams until the second of March reached about 5.3 billion cubic metres, or 32.8% as a total filling rate, compared to 49.6% recorded on the same date last year.

The engineer and water expert, Abdul Rahim Hendouf, explains to Al Jazeera Net that the per capita share of water is decreasing annually due to the increasing population, increasing needs and excessive consumption of water, and also due to climate change and the decline in the amount of precipitation, expecting the country to reach the threshold of water stress before 2050.

The Economic, Social and Environmental Council had warned in a report that the situation of water scarcity in Morocco is worrying, because its water resources are currently estimated at less than 650 cubic meters per capita annually, compared to 2500 cubic meters in 1960, and will drop below 500 cubic meters by 2030.

He added that international studies indicate that climate changes could cause the disappearance of 80% of the available water resources in the Kingdom within the next 25 years.

Economy damaged

Successive years of drought have increased the severity of water scarcity, and this year is considered one of the harshest drought seasons in Morocco since the eighties.

This situation prompted Moroccan King Mohammed VI to call on the government to take urgent measures to protect farmers and livestock farmers and reduce water waste.

The government has allocated 10 billion dirhams (about one billion dollars) to finance an exceptional program to mitigate the effects of delayed rains and water scarcity.

This critical situation affects the national economy, which relies heavily on agriculture, as agricultural production represents about 14% of the national product.

The economic expert, Abdul Nabi Abu Al-Arab, expects that the drought will deepen the crisis in the country, especially that agriculture occupies about 4 million of the workforce.

He told Al Jazeera Net, "When we talk about the agricultural sector, we are talking about the rural world, which is inhabited by about 49% of the population of Morocco. If there is no rain, there is no agriculture or work for these residents."

Therefore, Hanouf stresses the need to disengage the national economy from rain precipitation and agriculture, because this connection makes it fragile and affects the growth rate, especially in dry years, stressing the need to develop an industrial and service policy to create job opportunities that absorb surplus labor in the deserts.

For Abu Al-Arab, drought is a structural problem in Morocco, and therefore he sees the need to think in a sustainable manner about solutions related to the production, distribution and use of water, stressing the need to create a fixed, clear and equitable billing for the issue of water consumption, especially at the level of the agricultural sector.

In his view, Morocco needs a new agricultural system that relies heavily on water desalination and on advanced irrigation techniques and on reorienting the agricultural product towards products that use less water and have a high added value in international markets.

Water resources in Morocco are among the weakest in the world (Al Jazeera)

Facing water scarcity

The Ministry of Equipment and Water has developed a plan to overcome the repercussions of drought and the problem of water scarcity in general. This plan, which Al Jazeera Net obtained a copy of, includes a number of procedures and measures.

Among these measures is accelerating the work of supplying village centers from sustainable water systems, within the framework of the national plan for the supply of drinking and irrigation water (2020-2027), and strengthening the exploration of additional water resources, especially through the construction of holes to exploit groundwater, in addition to saving water and reducing water use. from waste, especially in traction and distribution channels.

The ministry will work - according to what was stated in the plan - to launch large-scale awareness campaigns to approve rational handling of water resources, to provide centers and "roundabouts" that suffer from scarcity of water resources and are far from structured water systems through tanker trucks, and to stop watering green spaces with water. Drinking water and resorting to the use of treated wastewater when available.

The ministry has also allocated a budget estimated at 1153 million dirhams (about 120 million dollars), to finance a supplementary emergency program, which is concerned with the completion of hill and small dams, the rental and purchase of tanker trucks, and the installation of mobile plants to desalinate seawater and wastewater.

In addition to the Al-Ghaith Program, a program that aims to increase the percentage of rain or snow using the cloud seeding technique, by using chemicals that are not harmful to the environment, such as "silver iodine" for cold clouds (-5 degrees) and "sodium chloride salt" for warm clouds.