Severe Drought Threatens Morocco’s Agricultural Hub as Dams Run Dry

Diverting water from the dams that supply the farms in the Agadir Souss-Massa region is the only solution found by the authorities, to allow nearly a million Moroccans access to drinking water in the face of the drought that has been raging for three years and is severely impacting water resources, reports geo.fr.

"These trees are nearly 20 years old, they are dead, there is no more water," laments Ahmed Driouch in front of the withered orange trees of a farm near Agadir.
The fill rate of the dams nationwide had reached 37% at the end of October 2020, compared to 45.6% in the same period in 2019. But in Agadir, the leading exporting region for citrus fruits and early produce, "the surface water deficit is 94%," worries Abdelhamid Aslikh, head of the river basin agency for the region.

Furthermore, since early October, the water stress has reached an alarming level to the point that tap water is cut off between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. in Agadir, and has allowed to save 20% of the water wasted at night. In addition to this measure, "the irrigation of golf courses and hotel gardens with drinking water is prohibited in favor of the use of treated wastewater" and many other measures, which also concern the regions of Marrakech and El Jadida, the Ministry of Agriculture specified, stressing that the cuts will continue until "the dam reserves improve".

The authorities are now focusing on the start-up, in April 2021, of a seawater desalination plant, in order to make up for the drinking water deficit in the region and facilitate the irrigation of a large part of the agricultural land.