After seven dry years, Morocco bets on the sea for its drinking water

After seven years of drought, Morocco is turning to the one water source that does not depend on rain. Water Minister Nizar Baraka told the World Water Congress in Marrakech that the country plans to draw 60% of its drinking water from treated seawater by 2030 — up from 25% today — reaching 1.7 billion cubic metres of desalinated water a year. The build is already moving: 17 plants operate today, producing 345 million cubic metres, with four more due by 2027, including the largest planned works near Tiznit, costed at about 10 billion dirhams (about $1 billion) to supply cities and farmland. Crucially, every new plant will run on renewable energy, and floating solar arrays on a dam near Tangier are being expanded to slow evaporation. The 2030 share is a target, not a tap already turned — but the plants rising along the coast are concrete, not rhetoric.

SDG 6 · Clean water and sanitation — Mechanism: infrastructure build