HOW MOROCCO WATER SCARITY DROP TO 23% AMID DAM DROUGHT

The low rate marks a drop from the 31% record a year earlier, according to data from the Ministry of Equipment and Water reported by Le360.

Ministry data show that the overall dam filling has plummeted to 3.72 billion cubic meters (bcm), down from 5.14 bcm recorded the previous year. This sharp decrease of around 1.42 cm a year raises alarms about the country’s water resources amidst a persistent lack of rainfall and consecutive years of drought.

As Morocco grapples with the repercussions of limited rainfall, several national dams are experiencing severe water stress, edging perilously close to an imminent drought. 

The filling percentage of the Loukko basin in the northwest has dropped to 38%, amounting to 666.94 million cubic meters (mcm), compared to 58% reported during the same period in the previous year.

Likewise, towards the northeast,  the Moulouya basin’s filling rate has dipped from 25% last year to 23% this year, equivalent to 190 mcm. Meanwhile, the Sebou basin follows suit with a filling percentage of 35%, down from 50% a year earlier.

However, some dams have seen an uptick in their filling percentages. The filling rate in the Tansift Dam near Al Haouz rose from 39% to 48%. The Draa dam in the southwest and the Guir Ziz Rheris dam in the southeast have also witnessed positive shifts, reaching 20% and 26%, respectively.

The situation is particularly dire for Morocco’s largest dam, the Al Wahda Dam, located at the foothills of the North Atlas mountains, which ranks the second-largest in Africa with a capacity of 3.52 cm. Its filling percentage currently stands at 39%, totaling around 1.38 bcm, compared to the 2.04 bcm, or 57%, recorded in the same period last year.

To add to this somber situation, in the southwest, the Al Massira Dam, the second-largest in Morocco with a total volume of 2.66 bcm, faces an alarming 0.6% filling.