Review for building knowledge database and consensus report on recommendation on wlaw

4.1General context of water resources in Morocco:

Morocco water resources are estimated in average to 30 billion m3 / year of which 75% correspondents to superficial waters and 25% to underground ones. Considering the climatic regime and physical characteristics of the environment, the potentialities in water are concentrated in Sébou and Oum Errbia basins. In order to illustrate the problematic of water resources distribution, more than 70% of the potential in water is concentrated in 25% of the national territory. It is interesting to signal that the bad distribution of water resources imposed for Morocco transfers policy between basins with regional adductions. By the way and for example, 120 Mm3 /year are transferred from the Oum Errbia basin for drinkable water and industrial water of the coastal Casablanca area. Equally, 300 Mm3 /year are transferred through the Rocade channel from Oum Errbia basin towards Tensift basin for the irrigation of Haouz (260 Mm3 /year) and drinkable water of the Marrakech city (40 Mm3 /year).

Underground waters contribute equally in the national hydraulic heritage since there are 32 deep aquifers and more than 48 superficial ones. As for superficial waters, there is a bad geographic distribution of underground resources since more than 50 % of the aquifer systems are located in the center and the north of the country. The hydrogeological knowledge’s state of the different aquifers is enough advanced, some deep aquifers necessitate additional investigations.

Considering the hydrological context of Morocco , adding to this the growth of the economical and social needs, ratio measured commonly by water stress is in constant decrease, it was about 2560 m3 / capita /year in 1960, It is currently below 900 m3 /year /capita and will be about 745 m3 /year /capita in 2020. (The threshold fixed by the World Bank and the United Nations is 1000 m3 / year /capita).

It is interesting to mention that Morocco water resources belong only to the country and are not divided on the physical plan with any riverside country. In fact, all the hydraulic basins are located on the national territory. The country is therefore protected about contentious situations with neighbours.

Water resources in Morocco are more and more affected by the pollution sources which are of three types: domestic, agricultural and industrial pollution.

4.2.1 Domestic Pollution:

This kind of pollution is due to the growing urbanization of Moroccan cities and especially to the discharge of wastewaters in the environment without any treatments ). The urban wastewaters volume varied from about 48 Mm3 in 1960 to 410 Mm3/an in 1990 for the national territory, It is passed to 500 Mm3 in 1999 and will achieve 900 Mm3/an in 2020 which 350 Mm3 only for Casablanca city. All the rejections are done in the receiver environment without treatment. The receiver environment more affected is the coastal one that receives alone 45% (deterioration of the sea ecosystem), The hydrographical network coming in second position with 30% followed by the ground with 24%.To illustrate the impact of waste waters on the receiver environment, we signal that in 1993, 6195 cases of cholera were observed around the national territory and this to the downstream of water rejections in urban areas.

4.2.2. Agricultural Pollution:

This pollution is due to the intensive use of fertilizers. A lot of aquifers have currently high concentrations regarding nitrates. By the way and for example, The Beni Moussa and Beni Amir aquifers in Beni Mellal area, have sometimes about 90 mg/litter (admissible maximum content: 50 mg/litters).The fertilizer use is equally behind the problem of eutrophication of water bodies downstream of the irrigated perimeters, this is due to the leaching by waters containing phosphates and nitrogen.

4.2.3. Industrial Pollution:

The firms with a big polluting potential are the industry food processing and that represent 25% about of industrial unities of Morocco (sugar industry, oil mills, canneries…). We signal in the passage that Morocco counts currently 12 sugar refineries of which 5 in Sébou basin and 5 in Oum Erbiaa one. Another kind of pollution originates from chemical branch (industries of the plastic, paints, tanneries, pesticides). In Marrakech for example, important tanneries reject their liquid wastes containing toxic chrome in the sewer system that is unitary type. The industrial waste waters rejections in the rivers are evaluated at 3.3 millions of population equivalent. We signal also that through Marrakech Wilaya, There is a multitude of traditional oil mill that reject the margin’s in lost wells and thus affecting underground waters quality.

4.2The use and water mobilization:

The water resource mobilization for the different social and economical uses is grossly done according to the following distribution:

-90 %: irrigation (big, small and hydraulic average).

-6%: nutrition in drinkable water (urban and rural environment).

-4%: industry (including the hydro-electric production).

Underground waters contribute for meadows of 32% to satisfy needs in drinkable water and about 31% for the agricultural needs.

We have to mention that farming mobilizes the great part of water resources. It is a choice and strategy that Morocco took since the years 60 and concretely there was the construction of a great number of dams from this date. The vision was ensuring the food security and reducing the dependence with foreign countries.

The main producer of drinkable water in Morocco is the national office of drinkable water (ONEP) that was created in 1972. The production increases and the capacity of current production exceed 55 m3 /s. This organism practices equally the distribution in the cities. For big cities, There are offices that do the distribution and some ones were privatized (Lydec in Casablanca, Amendis in Tanger, Rédal in Rabat). The service rate in urban area exceeds currently 85%. In rural area, it exceeds now 70% while it was only about 14% in 1992.

For irrigation water and concerning the big hydraulic (irrigation from big dams), there are agricultural offices that sell water to the farmers. The big irrigated perimeters (Haouz,
Tadla, Gharb...) have fixed water allocations according to master plans and according to hydraulic state in dams.

The other industrial uses of water concern mainly the industry food processing, sweets and the oilseeds.