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Pools and water stress in Morocco: building without waste

By the Piscine Lagon Maroc team

It is the awkward question, and we would rather answer it frankly than pretend it does not arise. A pool uses water in a country where water is scarce. The real question is not whether to build one, but how to build pools that use as little as possible.

Restrictions on water use are decided by the authorities (the Ministry of the Interior, walis and governors) and may vary from one province to another. Before any filling or any building work, check the rules in force with your commune or your prefecture.

Where Morocco stands

The country is emerging from seven consecutive years of drought. On 12 January 2026, the Minister of Equipment and Water, Nizar Baraka, announced before the House of Representatives that Morocco had come out of it: 108 mm of rain had fallen since 1 September, 95% more than the previous year. The winter continued in the same vein: according to figures presented to the Government Council by the Minister of Agriculture, cumulative rainfall reached about 462 mm by 11 March 2026, 56% above the average of the last thirty years. On 23 February 2026, according to the daily bulletin of the Ministry of Equipment and Water, dams were 70.68% full.

A good season does not settle the water question, though. The government itself is pursuing its long-term projects: desalination and water transfers between basins. In 2019, the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) estimated the resource at less than 650 m³ per inhabitant per year, and expected it to fall below 500 m³ by 2030 — the threshold the World Bank describes as absolute scarcity.

The rules that apply to pools

During the drought, the Ministry of the Interior sent several circulars to walis and governors, from 2022 onwards and then on 26 December 2023. Those that directly concern a pool owner:

A single filling per year for public and private pools.
A water recycling system required for pools.
No drinking water for irrigating public green spaces, or for washing vehicles.

In Marrakech, an order issued by the wali on 26 January 2022 applied these rules to pools (one filling per year, recycling system) and banned digging a well or borehole, or using groundwater, without authorisation: every existing well must be fitted with a meter. In January 2025, the Minister of the Interior again reiterated the limit of one filling per year. Other measures, such as closing hammams on certain days, were decided locally by governors, who were later allowed to adjust them.

As of the date of this article, we are not aware of any official lifting of these rules. So assume that filling a pool remains regulated, and have what applies to you confirmed before scheduling it.

What a pool really uses

Two things are often confused.

The initial filling is a one-off event: a 40 m³ pool means 40 m³, once. It is precisely this moment that the rules above regulate.

Evaporation is the real item, because it happens every day. The most reliable approach is to measure it on your own pool: a 1 cm drop over 1 m² of surface is 10 litres (the method is explained in our article on evaporation). To give an order of magnitude, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that an uncovered pool of about 46 m² can lose 45 to 117 m³ of water a year (an estimate made for the United States), and considers that beyond a drop of about 7.5 cm a week in a hot, dry climate, a leak is likely.

Let us do the maths for a 40 m² water surface: each centimetre lost is 400 litres. If the level drops by 5 mm a day, that is 200 litres a day, or 6 m³ a month; if it drops by 1 cm a day, 400 litres a day, or 12 m³ a month. Over three summer months, that comes to 18 to 36 m³. For a 40 m² pool with an average depth of one metre (40 m³), that is between nearly half and almost all of a filling.

The lever that changes everything: the cover

One piece of equipment makes the difference, by far. According to the EPA, a solid cover reduces evaporation by more than 90% while it is in place, and a bubble cover by 50 to 95%. For its part, the US Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that a cover reduces make-up water — the water you have to add to the pool — by 30 to 50%. Above all, remember that a cover only works when it is on: one that stays in the plant room saves nothing.

On a free-form pool, a made-to-measure cover follows the outline of the pool; an automatic cover, on the other hand, needs a compatible shape. It is a choice to make before designing the pool, and the first thing to budget for, before the lighting, before the waterfall.

The other choices that matter, and are made before digging

Block the wind. Wind replaces the saturated air above the water and drives evaporation. A well-placed hedge or low wall reduces losses as much as it improves comfort.
Do not oversize. Every extra centimetre of depth has to be filled, treated and, where relevant, heated: over a 40 m² water surface, 10 cm more means 4 m³ more.
Shade over part of the shallow area. A shallow zone in full sun warms up quickly, and evaporates all the more.
Recover filter backwash water for irrigation rather than sending it to the sewer. This is planned when the plant room is installed, not afterwards. It is treated water (chlorine, or salt with electrolysis): do not send it onto sensitive plants without care.
Local planting. A border of Mediterranean species needs far less watering than a lawn.

Do not drain for nothing

Emptying a pool to “start again with clean water” wastes dozens of cubic metres, and also counts as a new filling. In most cases, a corrective treatment and a good filter backwash are enough. According to the EPA, a well-maintained pool only needs draining every three to seven years.

Draining is not without consequences for the structure either, especially if the water table is close: it should be prepared with a professional, never improvised.

Our position

We do not claim that a pool is water-neutral. We say that between a pool designed without thinking about it and a pool designed with these choices, the difference is counted in cubic metres every year, and that this difference is decided at the design stage, not afterwards.

Cover, exposure, water recovery: these are topics to put on the table at the first meeting, even before the shape of the pool. See also maintaining a lagoon pool in the Marrakech climate.