Water Security: A Comprehensive Approach in Dakhla-Oued Eddahab

Water security goes beyond the mere ability of a region to provide drinking water. It also encompasses the capacity to preserve available resources, enhance their usage efficiency, recover some water after use, and redirect it to new purposes in order to reduce the pressure on conventional resources.

In the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab region, the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Multiservice Regional Company implements this approach through a series of projects and investments that recognize water as a limited resource requiring integrated management. This management begins with securing supply and improving network performance, extending to the treatment, enhancement, and reuse of wastewater.

In a region facing the scarcity of conventional water resources, the equation of water security does not solely focus on the production or distribution of water. It also involves mobilizing all possible solutions to preserve the resource and alleviate the pressure exerted on it. In this context, the reuse of treated wastewater is particularly significant as a concrete tool for resource diversification and enhancement of water cycle efficiency.

From Wastewater Treatment to Resource Valorization

The wastewater treatment plant in Dakhla plays a central role in this endeavor. It operates using activated sludge technology, with a capacity of approximately 10,000 cubic meters per day.

The facility’s role now extends beyond mere wastewater treatment before discharge. The developed approach aims to strengthen the treatment level in order to transform part of the wastewater into a resource that can be valorized for specific uses.

Currently, around 5,000 cubic meters per day undergo tertiary treatment. The Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Multiservice Regional Company is working on the rehabilitation and enhancement of the plant, aiming to double the volume of water that can benefit from this level of treatment.

The target is to reach approximately 10,000 cubic meters per day of water suitable for reuse, particularly for irrigating green spaces.

This direction reflects one of the fundamental principles of the company’s strategy: it is not merely about ensuring the safe disposal of wastewater, but also about recovering part of the resource and reintroducing it into the usage cycle.

This evolution carries both economic and environmental dimensions. Each cubic meter of treated water that can be reused for appropriate purposes reduces reliance on potable water for that usage, consequently preserving the resources primarily intended to meet the needs of the population.

Preserving Drinking Water for Population Needs

This approach takes on particular significance in a context marked by the limitation of conventional water resources in the region.

The reuse of treated water, especially for uses that do not require potable water quality, allows for the adaptation of resource quality to its intended use.

In other words, it is unnecessary to mobilize potable water for all purposes when treated water can meet specific requirements for non-potable needs.

Thus, reuse becomes an integral part of water conservation policy, rather than merely a technical project related to a wastewater treatment facility.

When treated water is allocated, for example, for the irrigation of green spaces, the amounts of potable water preserved can be prioritized for essential population needs.

Therefore, treatment no longer solely represents the final step in the water cycle; it becomes a stage for recovering the resource and assigning it a new function.

Groundwater Protection: Another Aspect of the Equation

The impact of these projects extends beyond water conservation; it also concerns environmental protection and the safeguarding of groundwater resources.

The rehabilitation of the wastewater system and treatment processes helps to mitigate the risks associated with the discharge of inadequately treated wastewater into the natural environment and, consequently, limits threats to groundwater resources.

This dimension is taken into account in the company’s projects dedicated to rehabilitating wastewater networks.

In the rehabilitation and renewal project for drinking water and wastewater networks in the Al Wahda neighborhood of Dakhla, approximately 20 kilometers of wastewater pipelines are being renewed, in addition to about 4,000 domestic connections.

The project also includes, for the first time in Dakhla, the construction of a new collector designed to carry wastewater from the neighborhood to the pumping station. This underground construction, achieved through a tunnel excavation method, stretches nearly 1,008 linear meters.

The total cost of the project’s two phases amounts to approximately 120 million dirhams. The various components of this operation aim to improve network functioning, reduce blockages and recurring overflows, and limit the infiltration of wastewater into the groundwater.

Thus, liquid sanitation projects are directly linked to the water conservation policy. Resource protection begins not just at the source supply level but also involves the natural environment in which the entire water cycle takes place.

A Vision Starting from Networks and Extending Beyond the Station

This approach becomes even clearer when the various projects undertaken by the company are viewed as components of a cohesive system.

The renewal of drinking water networks, reduction of losses, improvement of distribution efficiency, monitoring of flow rates and pressures, rehabilitation of storage and pumping facilities, followed by the treatment and reuse of wastewater: all these interventions converge towards a common goal of maximizing the valorization of each water resource.

In this regard, the project in the Al Wahda neighborhood also serves as a tangible example of the water economy policy through resource preservation within the network itself.

The project envisions the renewal of approximately 47 kilometers of drinking water pipes, with diameters ranging between 75 and 400 millimeters, as well as the renovation of about 4,000 domestic connections.

According to data disclosed by the company, the project is expected to save around one million cubic meters of water, equivalent to nearly 15% of the total needs of the city of Dakhla.

This figure illustrates that water conservation does not solely involve the reuse of wastewater. It also begins much earlier, with preventing losses in networks, enhancing their performance, and ensuring their monitoring, before continuing through the recovery of water after its use.

Technology in the Service of Water Conservation

To implement this vision, the company relies not only on infrastructure and engineering works but also on the integration of digital technologies in network management.

In this context, a remote management cell for drinking water and wastewater networks is being developed, utilizing 19 continuous monitoring devices connected to a remote intervention center.

This system enables continuous monitoring of flow rates and pressures, while also overseeing water quality and levels within tanks and various infrastructures.

Additionally, pumping stations are equipped with gas detection systems to enhance the safety of personnel working on these installations.

The objective of these devices is not only to understand what is happening in the networks, but to shift from a reactive approach in response to incidents to a proactive and preventative strategy.

Thus, the data collected by monitoring equipment provide a foundation for technical teams to quickly identify anomalies, better direct interventions, reduce response times, and limit the duration of field operations.

Digitalization thus becomes a significant tool for water conservation. A faster detection of leaks or malfunctions, combined with better control of pressures and flow rates, also helps to reduce the volumes of water that might be lost in the networks.

Reuse: A Link in a Larger System

However, the developed vision does not stop at wastewater treatment.

The goal is to establish an integrated system that considers water as a resource to be preserved at every stage of its usage cycle.

This explains the complementarity between investments in networks, monitoring and remote management systems, diversification of supply sources, desalination of seawater, wastewater treatment, and, finally, reuse of treated water.

In this framework, reuse is not an isolated project; it is the link connecting treatment, water conservation, and resource protection.

Water that has already been used does not necessarily become a lost resource. After necessary treatment stages, it can be recovered and directed towards appropriate uses.

This approach allows for the expansion of the volume of mobilizable resources without exerting the same pressure on conventional resources.

Investing in Water with a Long-Term Vision

These projects are part of a multi-year investment program by the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Multiservice Regional Company, which adopted its investment program for the period 2026-2030 at the end of 2025, following the implementation of the management contract in October 2025.

This program serves as a framework for enhancing investments related to water and wastewater services, as well as other services under the company’s responsibilities.

In the field of water, the value of these investments is measured not only by the amounts mobilized or the number of projects completed but also by their ability to evolve the management modes of the resource.

The more efficient the networks become, the less wastage occurs.

The more monitoring systems expand, the faster and more accurate the interventions become.

As the treatment and reuse capacities of wastewater advance, the pressure on conventional resources diminishes.

Furthermore, the more diversified the supply sources, the better the water security system is equipped to face resource scarcity and the impacts of climate change.

It is this array of interlinked components that endows investment in water with its strategic significance.

From Water Economy to Its Sustainability

Thus, the implications of treated water reuse extend beyond mere technical dimensions to directly connect with sustainability challenges.

The region requires water resources capable of supporting the needs of the population, economic activities, and urban development, all while preserving natural resources and avoiding overexploitation.

Water conservation thus becomes a responsibility encompassing all stages of the system: from the resource to the treatment facility, the distribution network to the user, and from wastewater to its treatment and possible reuse.

This is the logic that the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Multiservice Regional Company seeks to embed in its initiatives: transitioning from viewing water management as merely a daily service to recognizing it as a strategic resource that necessitates planning, protection, and valorization.

A Responsibility That Goes Beyond Projects

Yet, investments, regardless of their scale, cannot single-handedly ensure the sustainability of water resources.

Water preservation also depends on user behaviors: rational consumption, reporting leaks, minimizing waste, and responsibly utilizing the resource.

While infrastructure and technology provide necessary means, responsible use ultimately determines the volume of resources that can effectively be preserved on a daily basis.

Consequently, the equation of water security in the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab region rests on several components: resource diversification, network rehabilitation, infrastructure development, wastewater treatment, reuse of treated water, digital monitoring systems, and awareness of the necessity to conserve water.

In this dynamic, the Dakhla-Oued Eddahab Multiservice Regional Company is striving to establish an integrated system that makes resource protection, enhanced utilization efficiency, and valorization integral to a sustainable water security policy.

The water saved within networks, the water recovered after treatment, and the water preserved from waste ultimately constitute resources that bolster the region’s water potential.

Thus, the reuse of treated wastewater is not merely a technical solution for managing wastewater. It signifies an evolution in how water is perceived: a resource that does not necessarily have to be consumed just once but can, when treatment conditions and applicable standards allow, be recovered, valorized, and reintroduced into the usage cycle.

In this way, water preservation becomes a responsibility that begins with investment in infrastructure and technology, continues through efficient management and continuous monitoring, and ultimately relies on a collective awareness of the value of each drop.

For water security does not rest solely on mobilizing new resources; it also depends on the capacity to preserve existing resources, reduce losses, recover what can be retrieved, and ensure the sustainability of the resource for future generations.