Morocco wants 60% of drinking water to be desalinated

This strategy aims to secure the supply and save the national agriculture after seven years of rainfall deficit. On the sidelines of the World Water Congress in Marrakech, the minister detailed the battle plan: to reach an annual production of 1.7 billion cubic meters of desalinated water thanks to ongoing projects and future tenders. The flagship project will be a mega-plant near Tiznit, with a capacity of 350 million cubic meters, requiring an investment of one billion dollars to irrigate the southern food basin.

The industrial deployment is intensifying with projects planned in Nador, Tangier, Rabat (in partnership with Veolia) and Tantan. These new units will complement the 17 existing facilities and the four currently under construction, including the one in Casablanca scheduled for 2027. Nizar Baraka stressed the ecological imperative: all these new infrastructures will operate on renewable energy.

In parallel, the Kingdom is innovating to preserve its surface resources. Faced with evaporation, which causes a 30% loss of water from dams, floating solar panels have been installed near Tangier. This pilot experiment, considered conclusive, will be extended to the water reservoirs of the south and mountainous areas.