Morocco’s dam reserves remained more than twice as large as a year earlier at the start of July, giving the country a stronger buffer against summer demand despite an early decline during an extended heatwave.
Reservoirs held about 12.45 billion cubic metres of water on Saturday, equivalent to 73.13% of national capacity, according to official data cited by Hespress. The filling rate stood at 37.56% on the same date in 2025.
The improvement follows months of heavy rainfall that lifted national storage above 12.8 billion cubic metres by early June after several years of drought pressure.
Stored volumes have nevertheless begun their seasonal decline. Morocco’s dams held 12.64 billion cubic metres, or 74.25% of capacity, on June 21, meaning reserves fell by about 189 million cubic metres over the following two weeks.
That decrease reflects a combination of evaporation, drinking-water consumption, irrigation releases and reservoir management. The figures alone do not establish how much of the loss was caused by the heatwave or whether it demonstrates unusually effective water management.
The national average also masks a wide geographical divide.
The Sebou, Loukkos, Bouregreg and Tensift basins remained above 85% capacity, reinforcing supplies across much of northern and central Morocco. Several individual reservoirs were full or close to capacity.
Conditions were less comfortable farther south. Souss-Massa stood at about 52%, Ziz-Guir-Ghris at 45.5% and Draa-Oued Noun at 38.3%, leaving areas already exposed to aridity with a smaller margin for summer demand.
Oum Er-Rbia, which was among the basins most severely affected by the drought, has recovered to nearly 64%. Some of its strategic reservoirs, however, remain below the levels suggested by the basin-wide average, illustrating why national filling rates cannot be treated as a complete measure of local water security.
The current reserves substantially reduce immediate pressure compared with last summer, but they do not end Morocco’s structural water deficit or eliminate regional vulnerability.
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