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Morocco is parched and experiencing one of the worst droughts in the past thirty years. The country has 149 major dams on its territory, but they risk not filling due to lack of rain. If it does not rain in spring, restrictions or even water rationing could be imposed to preserve the country's meager resources.

A large part of activities that require water, particularly irrigation, is dependent on water stocks in dams that are being managed at this moment. Especially in winter we often have Western disturbances that come to water all of Northern Europe and also Morocco, so when we have blocking situations of an anticyclonic type we have no precipitation and the longer these situations persist, the less rain we have arriving. And in fact there is climate change which has two major effects on Morocco in particular, we have both a decline in precipitation over 20-30 years, and at the same time we have a sharp increase in temperatures in this region, these droughts will increase in an almost certain manner.
Yves Tramblay, researcher at the Institute for Research and Development (IRD) and specialist on Morocco in hydro sciences
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