Morocco to build second waterway to supply Tangier

Morocco plans to build a second 60 km-long waterway to meet the needs of Tangier whose dams have been hit by consecutive droughts.

The new infrastructure will be able to supply up to 600 million cubic meters of water to Tangier from the dam of Oued Makhazine, le360.ma cited water department officials as saying.

The waterway is also meant to prevent water from being wasted at sea, as the country has lost more than 6.5 billion cubic meters of fresh water thrown into the sea in the past 5 years.

Last August, Morocco succeeded in connecting the water-rich Sebou basin with a dam in the Bouregreg basin that supplies Rabat and Casablanca.

The project is planned to carry surplus water from Sebou basin all the way to the region of Marrakech in response to water scarcity and repetitive drought that emptied reservoirs.

Besides waterways, Morocco is building one of Africa’s largest desalination plants in Casablanca emulating the success of a similar plant that saved Agadir from water cuts.

Earlier this week, a seawater desalination plant started operations at the Guerguarat border post.

The construction of the project, commissioned by the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water (ONEE), began in November 2021. The new desalination plant will improve drinking water supply to the population of this area and is part of a series of strategic projects launched in the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab region in southern Morocco.

The country has 153 large dams and 141 small ones as it also plans to increase desalination units to 20 from 14 currently.