Global Rundown
- Above-average winter rains ended a seven-year drought in Morocco, as plans to improve future water security center on desalination and new dams.
- Warming alpine temperatures and precipitation falling as rain instead of snow are rapidly changing the landscape of global winter sports competition.
- The filling of wetlands and mangroves in northern Sri Lanka to make way for a new cricket stadium would result in catastrophic flooding, its critics say.
- The Uru Chipaya, indigenous to the Bolivian highlands, are migrating from their homelands amid long-standing drought and the disappearance of a major lake.
The Lead
After a winter of above-average precipitation, Morocco’s seven-year drought is over.
Between September 1 and January 12, more than 4 inches of rain fell on the country, raising the average reservoir volume to 46 percent of capacity. The much-needed rains were 17 percent greater than historic averages for the season, and 95 percent more than what fell during the same span last year. At that time — winter 2024 — the average dam was only 28 percent full.
Crucially, Oued Al Makhazine dam — the largest in northern Morocco — is now operating at full capacity, while Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah dam, which supplies the Rabat metropolitan area — home to more than 2 million people — with water, is 99 percent full. Major dams in seven other basins saw their capacity rise to between 80 percent and 100 percent.
The persistent drought in the dry North African country hit farmers and herders the hardest. Many were forced from their homes and historic lands amid worsening desertification, while the country’s wheat production and cattle count decreased significantly, Reuters reports. As authorities instituted water shutoffs and restrictions, thousands of protestors took to the streets demanding better management, infrastructure improvements, and government investment.
Morocco’s water ministry responded by launching its National Program for Drinking Water Supply and Irrigation. At its heart is the government’s goal to bring 13 new desalination plants online by 2030. Together, these facilities would treat 1.7 billion cubic meters of seawater annually, enough to supply 60 percent of the country’s drinking water.
Improving domestic water security may come at a cost to neighboring nations. By this summer, Morocco also plans to finish construction of the new Kheng Grou dam, a $97 million project that will see the country “restrict water access to hundreds of thousands of Algerians in a key regional hub,” according to the Eurasia Group.
Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue
- Combatting Agricultural Pollution: Michigan’s New Manure Management Rules — State takes critical new steps to limit major source of water pollution.
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This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
44
Percent of global cities that currently have the infrastructure to host winter sports competitions but are projected to lack adequate snow depth and cold temperatures by 2050 due to climate change, EuroNews reports. By the 2080s, depending on global carbon emissions, this figure could rise to 68 percent. Among past Olympic Winter Games host cities, Grenoble, Chamonix, Sochi, and Garmisch-Partenkirchen are all expected to no longer be “climate reliable” by 2050, while Vancouver, Sarajevo, Palisades Tahoe, and Oslo would be “climatically risky.”
The issue has gained special focus ahead of this year’s winter Olympics held in Milan-Cortina, Italy, as athletes have noted stark differences in mountain snow cover where they train. There are particular concerns over the future of the Paralympic Games, which are typically held two weeks after the Olympic events, closer to spring. There are discussions that the International Olympic Committee will hand-pick future host cities based on climatic reliability, a departure from its traditional proposal-and-bid system.
2,000
People who until recently lived in the town of Chipaya, Bolivia, located 13,000 feet above sea level and just 35 miles from the Chilean border. The traditional homelands of the Uru Chipaya — the oldest culture in South America, and possibly the world — have suffered under a changing climate, most notably with the disappearance of Lake Poopó, which was once Bolivia’s second-largest lake, the Guardian reports. Failing agriculture due to drought is exacerbated by desertification and encroaching salt, which has turned what little water there is to drink, saline. A spike in water-borne illnesses, notably diarrhoea, has been observed.
As a result of these climate challenges, a majority of the town — 67 percent of which is poor, according to the 2024 census — has left their home and culture behind, moving to Chile in search of economic opportunities.
On the Radar
Sri Lanka’s Cricket Dilemma: The proposed construction of a new international cricket stadium on Sri Lanka’s northern island of Mandaitivu has ignited a contentious environmental debate, Mongabay reports.
Still on schedule to begin hosting matches in 2027, the new venue — the focal point of a 138-acre sports complex — would be built on a low-lying and marshy coast, necessitating the clearing and filling of mangroves and wetlands that protect inland communities from sea level rise and storms. Between 1980 and 2019, the region experienced 12 major floods affecting tens of thousands of people, with climate projections forecasting erratic precipitation in the future.
“If the construction of the cricket stadium goes ahead as planned, it is inevitable that other parts of Mandaitivu will experience increased flooding,” Rakulan Uthayanayaky Kandasamy, who works with the Sri Lanka Environmental Action Network, told Mongabay.
