Highlights

Context

Climate change adds new complexity to Morocco’s economic growth by bringing increased stresses to water and land systems, so affecting water and food insecurity. The climate shocks in recent years of droughts and floods have unfortunately highlighted the impacts of these extreme events. With global models predicting that these will increase, alongside other changes in climate conditions such as in the growing season and heatwaves, it is important for Morocco’s decision-makers to have access to national-scale data that can inform their planning and investments.

Then, as part of the overall Water Security Nexus program, one of the activities conducted with the support of the Directorate of Financial Studies and Forecasting (DEPF) of the Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Administration Reform of Morocco, was to develop new data sets in consultation with key government agencies. Data from 10 in total Global Climate Models (GCMs) and Regional Climate Models (RCMs) were extracted for from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) (https://cordex.org/data-access/) for both the past and future against three Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios (historical, RCP 4.5, 8.5). The European Domain was selected as this gave 11km resolution data, although the southernmost part of the country was not available.

The data were checked against available values for long-term precipitation and average min/max temperatures (tmin/ tmax for the historical period data (using ECMWF ERA5 data because of the spatial coverage) and then bias-corrected using quantile mapping methodology. This compares historical periods to derive per-pixel, per-value correction factors based on cumulative distribution functions of observations and model outputs.

From these base data sets, new national-level climate change data and maps were generated covering various indicators that were identified by key stakeholders as important to their operations.

Objectives

The objectives of the workshop were to:

• Introduce Moroccan stakeholders to the Water Security Nexus Study in North Africa: Catalysing regional cooperation around climate change, migration, and resilience. 
• Expand the knowledge base for supporting water and agriculture management in Morocco with national climate change data.
• Transfer knowledge on the approaches and methods used for climate change data generation and analysis.

Targeted Audience and Participation to the Event:

Over a hundred persons attended the virtual event, which gathered decision-makers from key national and local institutions from Morocco. Engineers and Researchers from those institutions as well as from the academic sectors also attended the event as it aimed to present key findings and the various data sets produced during this activity. As this work brings in new information on Morocco’s climate future, Morocco’s key regional partners were also invited to the event.

Resources

• Workshop Agenda [EN/FR]
• Water Security Nexus program webpage
• Project report [EN]
• Data sets
• Press release [EN/FR/AR] 

Watch the workshop's recording 

Presentations

Session 1 - Introduction

• The Water Security Nexus project [FR]
• Support from the World Bank to the water sector in Morocco [FR]
• Activity’s context, scope, and key results [FR]

Session 2 - Integration of climate analysis in planning and needs

• Challenges of water governance in a context of climate change [FR]
• Climate change and agriculture in Morocco [FR]
• Integration of the climate change component in water resources planning [FR]

Session 3 - Climate change assessment methods, generation, and introduction to the new climate datasets            

• Methods for assessing climate change and generating climate scenario data for Morocco. [FR]
• Climate data for Morocco - Download, processing, and sharing. [FR]
• Introduction to data processing. [FR]

Speakers

Opening Remarks

• Mrs. Blanca Moreno-Dodson (Manager for the Center for Mediterranean Integration)
• H.E Mr. Simon Martin (Ambassador of the United Kingdom in Morocco)
• M. Mounssif Aderkaoui (Director of Financial Studies and Forecasting at the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Administrative Reform, Kingdom of Morocco)
• M. Omar Benjelloun (Director of Water Research and Planning, Ministry of Public Works, Transport, Logistics and Water, Kingdom of Morocco)
• M. Jesko Hentschel (Country Director, World Bank)

Presenters

• Mr Frédéric de Dinechin, Senior Knowledge Management Officer, CMI
• Mrs. Safaa Bahije, Water Resources Specialist, WB
• Dr. Rachael Mcdonnell, Strategic Program Director – Water, Climate Change & Resilience, IWMI
• Prof. Fatima Driouech, Water & Climate Expert, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University & Consultant IWMI
• Mrs. Siham Laraichi, Head of Hydro-climatic monitoring, General Directorate of Water, Morocco
• Dr. Riad Balaghi, Head, Agronomy and Agricultural Machinery, INRA of Morocco
• Mrs. Fatiha Fdil, Head of Planning and Assessment of Water Resources, ABH Souss-Massa, Morocco 
• Dr. Luna Bharati, Principal Researcher-Hydrology and Water Resources, IWMI
• Mr. Jack Beard, Climate change modeling Expert, Future Water, and Consultant IWMI  
• Mrs. Saloua Balhane, Ph.D. student, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University