World Bank Warns: 42% of Morocco’s Coast at Risk of Flooding by 2030

By 2030, a significant part of the Moroccan coastline will suffer from severe erosion, warns the World Bank. According to its experts, 42% of the coastline will be subject to flooding and erosion. Thus, the rise in sea level constitutes a major risk for the coastal areas which concentrate 60% of the population and economic activities of the kingdom. Agriculture, water, energy, fishing, forests and health are the most affected sectors and floods will exacerbate soil erosion, land degradation, the invasion of exotic species and the salinization of groundwater.

The main cause of this phenomenon is global warming, as the climate has become hotter and drier. Thus, the study indicates that a decrease in average rainfall of 10% to 20% is expected, with a rise in temperatures followed by a high rate of evapotranspiration and a decrease in surface soil moisture. In addition, the rise in temperatures could lead to a reduction in the snow-covered area in the Atlas mountains. This will lead to a decrease in water reserves with the risk of water stress for Morocco, the experts stressed.

With all these more or less serious forecasts for the country, the World Bank recommends that Morocco strengthen its investments in weather stations, expand the country’s national hydro-meteorological monitoring, strengthen its technical capacities to integrate climate-smart agricultural techniques and improve its early warning systems on hydro-meteorological phenomena. Morocco must also extend the Green Morocco Plan of the Ministry of Agriculture and further develop crops requiring less water resources.