water supply and sanitation in morocco water supply and sanitation in morocco water supply and sanitation in morocco is provided by a wide array of utilities. they range from private companies in the largest city, casablanca, the capital, rabat, tangier, and tetouan, to public municipal utilities in 13 other cities, as well as a national electricity and water company (onee). the latter is in charge of bulk water supply to the aforementioned utilities, water distribution in about 500 small towns, as well as sewerage and wastewater treatment in 60 of these towns. water supply and sanitation in moroccodatawater coverage (broad definition)(improved water source) 82% (2011)sanitation coverage (broad definition)(improved sanitation) 70% (2011)continuity of supply50%average urban water use (l/person/day)n/aaverage urban water and sanitation tariff (us$/m3)us$share of household meteringvery highannual investment in wss$22 per capita (2005)share of self-financing by utilitieslowshare of tax-financingn/ashare of external financinghighinstitutionsdecentralization to municipalitiesyes, for larger citiesnational water and sanitation companyyes, for bulk water supply and small townswater and sanitation regulatornoneresponsibility for policy settingministry of energy, mines, water and environmentsector lawwater resources law, but no specific law for water supply and sanitationno. of urban service providers17 (onee, 4 private operators and 12 local utilities)no. of rural service providersn/a there have been substantial improvements in access to water supply, and to a lesser extent to sanitation, over the past fifteen years. remaining challenges include a low level of wastewater treatment (only 13% of collected wastewater is being treated), lack of house connections in the poorest urban neighborhoods, and limited sustainability of rural systems (20 percent of rural systems are estimated not to function). in 2005 a national sanitation program was approved that aims at treating 60% of collected wastewater and connecting 80% of urban households to sewers by 2020. the issue of lack of water connections for some of the urban poor is being addressed as part of the national human development initiative, under which residents of informal settlements have received land titles and have fees waived that are normally paid to utilities in order to connect to the water and sewer network. water resources conventional water resources morocco has about 22 billion cubic meters of conventional renewable water resources per year equivalent to 730 cubic meter/capita/year. before taking into account drought years of the 1990s and 2000s total renewable water resources were estimated to be much higher at around 29 billion cubic meters however, only up to 20 billion cubic meter per year can be economically captured (ressources mobilisables), including 16 billion m3 of surface water and 4 billion m3 of groundwater. morocco has about 100 dams of various sizes with a total storage capacity of 15 billion cubic meter. it was estimated that in 2004 about 13.5 billion m3 were withdrawn, or about 67% of available resources. 83% of withdrawals were for agriculture and 17% for municipal and industrial uses. however, water resources are not divided equally in space and time, with most of the water resources available in the north and rainfall limited to the winter. in addition, the quality of water resources is degraded through pollution, in particular in the sebou basin. snowpack in the atlas mountains, where most major rivers in morocco have their source, provides important storage for water resources morocco is divided in seven major river basins and a number of smaller basins. the seven major basins from north to south are the loukkos river, the moulouya river, the sebou river, the bou regreg river, the oum er-rbia river, the tensift river and the souss-massa-drâa basin. except for the loukkos river, all these rivers originate in the atlas mountains.there are few inter-basin transfers in morocco, the most important ones being the rocade canal from the oum er-rbia basin to the tensift basin near marrakesh, a transfer from near the mouth of the oum er-rbia to casablanca and a transfer from the bouregreg river also to casablanca. there are tentative plans for a large north-south water transfer project with an average conveyance capacity of around 2.74 million cubic meter/day (0.75 billion m3/year) over 500–600 km from the sebou river basin to the water-stressed tensift basin. water use for municipal and industrial uses was about 2.28 billion m3 in 2003, of which 0.7 billion m3 (31%) were from groundwater and 1.58 billion m3 (69%) from surface water. groundwater resources are overexploited in parts of the country, in particular in the sous-massa area in the south where irrigation is the predominant water user. wastewater treatment and reuse so far there is limited planned reuse of reclaimed water in morocco, given that only 21% of the collected wastewater undergoes any treatment. in 2009 there were more than 100 wastewater treatment plants in morocco, mostly serving small and medium-sized towns located in the interior or the country. the first wastewater treatment plants in morocco were built by small municipalities using a wide range of technologies. because of the limited financial and technical capacities of those municipalities practically all of these 28 plants ceased functioning shortly after they were completed. this triggered a decision in 2000 to gradually transfer the responsibility for sanitation in small and medium-sized towns to the national utility onep. in 2009 the latter has built or was in the process of building 43 plants, mostly using the stabilization pond technology, but also one activated sludge plant and a few trickling filter plants. the track record of operating these plants is better than for the plants operated by municipalities, partly because the predominant technology - stabilization ponds - does not require electricity. its lower operating costs make it less vulnerable to disruptions in the case of strained operating budgets. in larger cities, only very few municipal utilities (régies) operate wastewater treatment plants. their track record at operating them is mixed: a plant operated by the agadir utility works well, while plants operated by the utilities of beni mellal and nador do not function. these plants use the activated sludge technology which requires electricity. the marakkech utility was constructing a large plant in 2009, and the fes utility was in the process of bidding for a plant. this process experienced a setback when the french development agency afd and the european investment bank withdrew their financing for the plant, citing non-respect of tender procedures as the reason. compared to the overall water use in morocco, reclaimed water can only provide a fraction of the country's increasing water needs. furthermore, there is no regulatory framework for water reuse and no established system to recover the costs for reclaimed water from users. the country's largest reuse project is currently under construction in marrakech, where reclaimed water from a 90,000 m3/day plant will be reused primarily to irrigate golf courses. the tertiary treatment and the network to distribute the reclaimed water will be financed by private investors. redal, the utility serving rabat, was carrying out a study in 2009 to assess the feasibility of wastewater reuse to irrigate green spaces in the city. besides this there have been a few scattered small-scale pilot reuse projects since the 1980s, some of which have been abandoned. among the sustainable projects is a project to irrigate golf courses in ben slimane that has been operating since 1997 with a capacity of 5,600 cubic meter/day. in 2009 a large reuse project was planned in agadir to irrigate a golf course and municipal gardens with 50,000 cubic meters/day. in 2009 there were also two projects for direct, planned reuse in agriculture in oujda and beni mellal. these projects are financed by the national environmental fund and would add a funding to the plants. in 2009 the water department of the state secretariat for water and environment carried out a national study for water reuse. desalination morocco is increasingly looking towards seawater desalination as a source to supply its increasing water needs for drinking, industry and mining. the secrétariat d'état chargé de l'eau et de l'environnement has commissioned a study on desalination due to be completed by the end of 2009. among others, the study foresees a very large new desalination plant in the casablanca region with a capacity of around 685,000 m3/day (250 million m3/year), or more than 10% of total municipal water use in morocco. in may 2014 the national utility onee signed a build-operate-transfer contract for a 100,000 m3/day reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant in agadir with a consortium between the spanish firm abengoa water and the investment fund inframaroc. the project had been under preparation for seven years. the payment is in local currency and the abengoa-led consortium was the only one that submitted a bid for the project that other firms considered to be too risky. access in 2011 82% of the population of morocco had access to an improved water source. specifically, this means that 59% of moroccans had access to piped water in their house or in the yard of their house. as of 2004, for 11% the main source of water supply was a public stand pipe, for 5.6% it was a protected well. 1.5% of moroccans, essentially in rural areas, relied on rainwater harvesting as their principal water source. 7% collected water from springs. half of these springs, supplying 3.5% of the population, were estimated to be protected. all the above sources are considered as improved water sources by the who, thus bringing the total to 82%. 18% of the population did not have access to an improved water source. this share is split up as follows: 1%, both in urban and rural areas, used water from tankers as their main water source. 7% collected water from unprotected public wells and 4% from unprotected private wells inside their home or yard. 2.5% took their water directly from rivers and open reservoirs. another 3.5% were estimated to use an unprotected spring as their main source of water supply, so that in total 18% of the population lacked access to an improved water source. in rural areas women wash clothes, as shown here on the dades river. with increasing access to tap water and standpipes this practice has become less common water urban rural total tap inside the house 82.6% 18.1% 58.3% tap in the yard 2.6% 1.7% 2.2% bottled water 0.6% 0.3% 0.5% standpipe 10.8% 11% 10.9% protected wells 0.8% 13.5% 5.6% open wells 1% 26.6% 10.7% spring 0.9% 17.2% 7.1% river or creek 0.0% 5.4% 2.0% reservoir of a dam 0.0% 0.3% 0.1% rainwater harvesting 0.0% 4.0% 1.5% tanker truck 0.6% 1.5% 0.9% others 0.1% 0.4% 0.2% total 100% 100% 100% source: enquête sur la population et la santé familiale (population and family health survey) 2004. concerning sanitation, 83% of the urban population and 52% of the rural population had access to an improved sanitation facility in 2011. 14% of the urban population used shared latrines, which do not count as improved sanitation. 6% of the rural population used shared latrines, and 38% were estimated to defecate in the open. it is the poorest who have no access to sanitation: a 2004 world bank study noted that "sewerage service is completely lacking in the peri-urban areas of secondary urban centers. slums scattered across the bigger metropolitan areas are also deprived of access to the sewerage collection network, reinforcing the health risks and poverty stigma in those neighborhoods." service quality water supply is continuous in almost all medium and large urban centers. in the city of layoune, which is served by a seawater desalination plant that has insufficient capacity to supply the entire city, water supply was intermittent in 2010. only about 21 percent of collected sewage is being treated before being discharged into the environment. history and recent developments private service provision during the protectorate during the french protectorate, beginning in 1912, water supply and sanitation in many large cities in morocco were managed under a concession to the private company société marocaine de distribution d'eau, de gaz et d'electricité (smd). smd, a consortium led by lyonnaise des eaux, provided services in casablanca, rabat, salé, tangiers and meknes. since 1950 smd also managed a vital bulk water transfer project: the supply of water from the oum er-rbia river to casablanca. bulk water supply to other cities that were not able to supply themselves from local water sources was a responsibility of a public company called régie d'exploitation industrielle du protectorat (reip) created in the early 1930s.