Morocco, among 5 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, is facing unprecedented water scarcity exacerbated by demographic growth, climate change and the requirements of social and economic development, reveals a new World Bank report.
The Kingdom, alongside Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Iran, is facing “a severe shortage of water necessary for life and livelihood.” Noting that “despite the large investments in infrastructure over the past decades, the countries of the region suffer from an unprecedented and ever-increasing scarcity of water due to population growth, climate change and the requirements of social and economic development.”
“The Economics of Water Scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa” report states that the region witnessed an increase in population, as it moved from “more than 100 million people in 1960 to more than 450 million people in 2018, with an expectation that the average population in 2050 will exceed 720 million people,” which means water resources are becoming more threatened and scarce.
The report indicated that by 2050, an additional 25 billion cubic meters of water will be needed annually to meet the needs of the region, and this is equivalent to establishing another 65 desalination plants, the size of the Ras Al-Khair plant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is currently the largest in the world.
The same source stressed that countries located above the absolute limit of water scarcity of 500 cubic meters per person annually, including Morocco, are considered middle-income countries, and register more than 70% of the population of rural areas in the region.
The five countries grow “more than half of the amount it needs grains and is self-sufficient in fruits and vegetables, but its population is growing rapidly, while increasing non-conventional water supplies is an emerging area for policy and investment discussion.”
The report indicated that “one of the long-term general trends among the various countries in the region is the increased focus on increasing water supplies rather than managing demand, which has led to the entrenchment of the prevailing belief in societies across the region that the problem of water scarcity is driven by constraints on the supply side.”
The document noted that virtual water imports throughout MENA, mostly used for agricultural production, doubled between 1998 and 2010, says the report.
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