Assessment of Virtual Water Flows in Morocco’s Foreign Trade of Crop Products

As a semi-arid/arid country located in the northwest of Africa, Morocco is facing serious water scarcity driven by the dual stresses of decreasing availability of water resources and increasing water demands. Virtual water trade could be an effective tool to alleviate water scarcity. The paper presents an analysis of the relationships between agrarian productions, foreign trade, and the water sector in Morocco by deriving a comprehensive estimate of virtual water export and import in Morocco’s foreign trade of 40 crop products during the period from 2000 to 2017. Our objectives include determining the intensity of water consumption of exported and imported crop products and quantifying the water consumed and saved, respectively, by locally producing and importing these products. To this end, FAO’s Penman-Monteith climate model was used to estimate crop water requirements based on data on meteorological factors. The results show that Morocco was a net virtual water importer during the study period. The deficit was 595.74 Gm3. The tendency of total virtual water export was on a rising trend, while the total virtual water import was on a downward trend. The main exported virtual water was from vegetables (68.87 Gm3, 72.47%) and the main imported virtual water was from cereals (679.68 Gm3, 98.4%). Regarding crop product’s water intensity, we found that the exported crop products were excessively concentrated on water-intensive products such as mandarins and clementines, figs, oranges, apricots, plums, citrus fruits, olives, tomatoes, asparagus, peas, and artichokes. On the other hand, the agricultural policy of 2009–2020 increased the production of water-intensive products. This finding seems to be going against the virtual water trade theory, which states that water-poor countries should import water-intensive products and produce local products with lower water requirements.