There is no river. There is no aquifer worth speaking of. There is, however, sunlight — eleven hours a day, 340 days a year, striking an area of hardpan and dune where very little else grows. Morocco looked at that sunlight and decided to use it to make water.
The Sahara Water Initiative, a joint project of the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy and the African Development Bank, completed its third and final phase this month. The network of 14 solar-powered desalination and atmospheric water generation plants now produces 4.2 billion litres per day, piped inland through 2,800 kilometres of buried infrastructure.
Two thirds of the output serves Moroccan agricultural and municipal needs. The remainder flows south under a treaty framework to Mauritania and Senegal, supplying regions where groundwater depletion had become an acute development crisis. In recipient communities, rates of waterborne illness have fallen sharply since supply began.
The atmospheric water generation component — drawing moisture from desert air using a proprietary desiccant process — surprised engineers with its output. In the 47 percent humidity corridor near the Atlantic coast, the AWG units outperformed their specifications by 22 percent.
"Water is the most political resource on earth," said the project director. "Building this pipeline was less about engineering and more about persuading twelve government ministries across three countries to trust each other."