Water conservation is imperative: This is Europe’s driest region

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Hot and prolonged drought is a problem in Europe. But especially in southern Spain. Drought alert has been activated in the Andalusian resort region.

Dozens of municipalities in the provinces of Malaga and Huelva have announced restrictions on water consumption in recent days. The measures include closing private water supply at night, shower restrictions and a ban on garden watering and washing cars and facades.

The most important tourist destinations like Marbella will be protected for the time being or will only need to be taken into account with mild measures. Beach showers and footwash areas are being shut down in individual coastal communities such as Torremolinos, and Benalmadena has replaced all shower heads to avoid unnecessary use.

A widespread ban was also introduced on filling ponds. Given the fact that water sometimes evaporates quickly at temperatures above 40 degrees, at least private pools can dry out in a short time.

There is a problem with tourism

Andalusia will still be wary of such measures in tourist facilities. Because Andalusian tourism authorities are expecting a record year: they are predicting about 11.5 million visitors. Especially since tourism is the most important economic sector in the region, you do not want to scare them.

However, this may not go well in the long run. Andalusian reservoirs are still, on average, 29.3 percent full, losing millions of liters of water evaporating every day due to the sweltering heat. Individual reservoirs currently have less than 10 percent of capacity left. If little water is only there for hotels and tourists, the local population and agriculture will run away.

Therefore, urgent measures are required. For example, there is a desalination plant project in Estepona. In recent years, some water has also been purchased, for example, from neighboring Gibraltar. Several specific additional budgets have already been approved to combat drought in Andalusia.

But all this costs a lot of money. Perhaps one of the reasons Andalusia’s environment minister Juanma Moreno said she wanted to go to Brussels and get Andalusia to be recognized there as “Europe’s driest autonomous community”.

Source :Blick