The government’s program seeks to diversify Morocco’s water supply while tightening control over demand, Le360 reports. The program says emergency projects, desalination and water transfers have strengthened the country’s resilience, but demand management has lagged and wastewater reuse is advancing slowly.
To secure supply, the government relies on three levers: more small and hill dams with rainwater harvesting, aimed at arid and mountain areas; faster seawater desalination, prioritized for human consumption and, in some zones, irrigation; and transfers between basins and regions, where feasible. Concretely, it plans about 400 hydraulic structures and six new desalination plants beyond those just launched, to mobilize 1.8 billion cubic metes by 2031, plus a second phase of the Bouregreg-to-Oum Er-Rbia transfer.
On demand, the text targets groundwater through shared-management aquifer contracts, strict limits on volumes drawn to end overexploitation, and artificial recharge. Reuse of treated wastewater for green spaces and sports grounds is to accelerate, rules on allocating dam water will be revised, and oversight of the public hydraulic domain strengthened. A participatory national water plan would set a vision for each basin.
Agriculture accounts for many of the measures. With dam stocks above 11.1 billion cubic meters, a 65.7% fill rate in early October against 32.1% a year earlier, the program calls for generalizing localized irrigation. A 350,000-hectare scheme would bring water-saving irrigation to about 1.2 million hectares, nearly 70% of irrigated land. It also envisages water meters, aid tied to water balance and solar pumping, shifting the yardstick from hectares and tons to value added per cubic meter.
Rural areas get a dedicated chapter: drinking water for unconnected douars, public fountains and wider sanitation. The government plans about 1,000 water points in pastoral zones and promises drinking water and adequate sanitation in every school by 2031.