Rabat – Director of the Sebou Water Basin Agency Samira El Haouat announced Tuesday, January 28, that Morocco plans to construct four large dams in the Fez-Meknes region by 2027.
El Haouat announced the projects during a meeting on King Mohammed VI’s 2020-2027 National Drinking Water Supply and Irrigation Program.
The current storage capacity of the Sebou Hydraulic basin is around 5.549 billion cubic meters. The addition of four new dams will bring the total to 8 billion cubic meters, El Haouat stated.
The four dams will cost a total of MAD 6.7 billion (around $694 million).
A total of 28 small dams are confirmed for construction in the region, concerning the province of Ifrane (1 dam), the prefecture of Meknes (1 dam), the provinces of Sefrou and Taza (2 dams each), El Hajeb (1 dam), the province of Taounate (2 dams) and the province of Boulemane (19 dams).
The new dams fall under the framework of Morocco’s new water plan, which came into effect on January 14 and has a budget of MAD 115.4 billion (around $11.96 billion).
Just two days after the official launch of the plan, King Mohammed VI inaugurated several hydraulic, hydro-agricultural, and drinking water projects in the province of Essaouira, about 190 kilometers west of Marrakech.
The newly opened projects include the Moulay Abderrahmane dam on Oued (river) Ksoub, a hydro-agricultural development project on the downstream of the new dam, and other projects relating to the construction of a water treatment plant and strengthening access to drinking water in the region.
The Moulay Abderrahmane dam cost MAD 920 million (around $94.6 million). The hydro-agricultural development project, meanwhile, had a budget of MAD 238 million (around $24.2 million), while the other projects aiming to strengthen access to drinking water had a total budget of MAD 227 million (around $23 million).
Read also: Morocco’s 2020-2027 Water Plan Kicks Off at Full Speed
