Summer heat affects the country in the middle of winter while it is already suffering from unprecedented drought. Water restriction measures have been taken in major cities.
“It’s weird. There’s terrible heat, a heatwave,” agrees this woman we met in the streets of Casablanca. “The climate changed suddenly,” says one man. 34 degrees in Casablanca, the economic heart of Morocco, and up to 36 in Agadir and Essaouira… The heat wave hit all of Morocco. The cause is the meeting of desert winds with the Azores anticyclone.
Bad news for the Cherifian kingdom which is already experiencing an unprecedented drought. Rainfall has been at half-mast for a decade. Water stress has become chronic and the shortage requires restrictions. While polishing a 4×4 in the street, this car guard does not know that this gesture is now prohibited for half the week. “We were told nothing,” he pleads.
The authorities have also decreed a ban on watering lawns and filling swimming pools, but also the closure of hammams three days a week. “I have a beauty salon with an individual hammam. I read it in the newspapers. It was said on TV. You should not operate the hammam on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday because of the water shortage”, explains the owner of the premises.
Seawater desalination plant, water highway, transition from agriculture to drip irrigation. As in Catalonia, Spain, or the Pyrénées-Orientales, France, Morocco is engaged in a race against the effects of climate change.
