The Head of Government, Aziz Akhannouch, affirmed, Tuesday in Riyadh, that the management of water resources constitutes a strategic issue for Morocco, which is the subject of permanent personal monitoring by King Mohammed VI, in his various speeches and high guidance.
The Head of Government, who represents the King at the “One Water” Summit, whose work began on Tuesday in the Saudi capital, specified on this occasion that the Kingdom has dedicated more than 14 billion dollars for the implementation of an ambitious national program aimed at guaranteeing access to drinking water and irrigation water, through a global and innovative approach allowing the Kingdom to guarantee a strategic water reserve.
Thus, several main axes have been deployed, the first being the realization of structuring projects connecting the hydraulic basins, in particular through the establishment of a water highway ensuring the water connection between the North and the Center of the Kingdom, he affirmed, specifying that Morocco succeeded in completing the first phase of this project by connecting the Sebou and Bouregreg basins, with a water conveyance capacity of an average of one million cubic meters per day.
The second axis, he continued, concerns the realization of seawater desalination projects, specifying that Morocco has already built 14 desalination stations, including those of Agadir and Dakhla.
Mr. Akhannouch underlined in this regard that the Kingdom is striving to accelerate the construction of 16 additional stations, the main ones of which are those of Casablanca – the largest of their kind in Africa – and
of Rabat, which will be carried out within the framework of a public-private partnership. These seawater desalination projects aim to increase the current capacity, estimated at 254 million cubic meters, to an overall capacity of 1.7 billion cubic meters per year by 2030.
Regarding the third axis, the Head of Government mentioned the promotion of unconventional water resources, in particular the reuse of treated wastewater, particularly for the irrigation of green spaces in several cities, such as Rabat, Marrakech and Agadir.
The fourth axis concerns, for its part, the promotion of water-saving irrigation systems, thanks to the generalization of irrigation techniques and systems aimed at rationalizing water consumption in the agricultural sector, explained Mr. Akhannouch.
And to note that the Kingdom, as part of the Green Morocco Plan, has equipped around one million hectares with irrigation systems, including more than 650,000 hectares with drip irrigation systems, thus saving more than 2 billion cubic meters of irrigation water. With the “Green Generation” strategy, Morocco intends to increase the area irrigated by drip to reach one million hectares by 2030, he said.
The fifth axis, he added, concerns the policy of dams aimed at strengthening water supply, recalling that Morocco adopted this strategy in the 1960s, which allowed it to equip itself with an infrastructure major hydraulic project, including 154 large dams with a capacity of more than 20 billion cubic meters, to which are added 17 dams currently under construction with a capacity of nearly 5 billion cubic meters. This will bring the total storage capacity to 25 billion cubic meters by 2030, he said.
Despite Morocco’s many achievements in water stress management, many challenges and constraints remain, which can only be addressed through serious and responsible commitment, continued participatory action, and strengthening investments. innovative technologies and the development of public-private partnership, concluded Mr. Akhannouch.
