Casablanca Faces Nightly Water Cuts Amid Growing Drought Crisis

In Casablanca, the population is facing a serious water crisis. While they are already suffering from measures to reduce the water flow, the residents of the communes of Deroua and Oulad Abbou were surprised by a notification from the Autonomous Water and Electricity Distribution Agency, responsible for water and liquid sanitation management in Sidi Rahal Chataï and Had Soualem as well, informing them of the daily water flow cut from midnight to six in the morning. The inhabitants of the province of Berrechid and the communes supplied with water are not spared either. The water sector within the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water has informed them of the interruption of the water supply from Thursday, August 15 at 9 p.m. until noon this Friday. This measure is part of the fight against the problem of water stress and the completion of the connection work between the seawater desalination plant of Jorf Lasfar and the treatment station of the dam, the main supplier of drinking water in the province, where the supplier has urged the inhabitants to take the necessary precautions until the gradual resumption of supply.

The current situation is critical with regard to the aggravation of the level of water stress, especially during the summer period and the vacation season which represent a peak in energy consumption, both for water and electricity, said the owner of a hydraulic engineering company and expert in environmental solutions to Hespress, before recommending solutions. According to his explanations, the operations of rapid connection to nearby desalination stations can constitute a temporary solution pending the commissioning of the Casablanca desalination station, the construction of which is planned in the commune of Lamharza, near Sidi Rahal. Optimal demand management and strengthening of storage capacities represent an effective solution to avoid notifications of interruption of drinking water supply in the near future, added the expert in environmental solutions. In this sense, strengthening citizen awareness campaigns, both individual and collective, to reduce and rationalize their consumption of this vital resource and to adopt economic alternatives, particularly in domestic use, proves necessary, he continued, stressing that storage is of crucial importance to ensure supply in certain sensitive areas, which could disrupt the daily life of the inhabitants.

The notifications of water supply cuts come at a bad time because the persistence of the water crisis in Casablanca has led the authorities to impose restrictions on water again at the level of hammams and car wash stations. Since August 12, these establishments have been closed three days a week, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.