Europe > Southern Europe > Malta > Malta has severest water shortage in the Mediterranean

Malta: Malta has severest water shortage in the Mediterranean

2013/05/26

Part Mediterranean islands, Malta is the one with the greatest water shortage, with annual water needs almost double availability. Sicily, on the other hand, has additional water than it needs.

Manuel Sapiano from Malta's Ministry for Energy and Water Conservation spoke on the issue Friday in Palermo, as part of the last leg of the Mediwat project co-funded by the European Union as part of the Med 2007-2013 program. Funding totaled 1.48 million euros, and the chief region of the project was Sicily (Water and Refuse Department - Water Observatory). Twelve pilot projects were presented during the conference, which focused on waste water treatment, their reuse and the optimization of water resources for irrigation.

The projects were developed in three years of study by Mediwat partners from the Mediterranean area: the Department of Agrarian Engineering of the University of Catania, the Bari Department of the National Research Council, the Authority for Water,Energy and Mineral Resources of Malta, the Water Department of Lemesos (Cyprus), the Crete Polytechnic, the Municipal Authority for Water and Purification of Chania (Greece), the University of Barcelona (Spain), IRSTEA (Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture from Aix en Provence, France) and the Aqualogy Medio Ambiente- Delegation from the Balearic Islands (Spain). Sapiano said that ''on the island of Malta, annual water needs are almost double (64 cubic meters) the availability of water resources (28 cubic meters), over a territory that has the highest people density (1,345 inhabitants per square kilometer) compared with Corsica, Crete, Cyprus, Mallorca and Sicily''.

''Part the causes of this water shortage,'' he said ''is the low rainfall - at an annual average of 550 millimeters, the lowest of amount Mediterranean islands except for Cyprus (500 millimeters). The cost of water on Malta is as well the highest (alongside Cyprus). In Sicily we find a very different situation: compared with the 1,267 cubic meters needed, there is an availability of 4,746 cubic meters.''

Related Articles

The European Union is bitterly divided and likely to remain so
2016/01/02
Global growth will be disappointing in 2016: IMF's Lagarde
2016/01/02 World economic increase will be disappointing next year and the outlook for the medium-term has as well deteriorated, the chief of the International Monetary Fund said in a guest article for German newspaper Handelsblatt published on Wednesday. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the prospect of rising interest rates in the United States and an economic slowdown in China were contributing to uncertainty and a higher risk of economic vulnerability worldwide. Added to that, increase in world trade has slowed considerably and a decline in raw material prices is posing problems for economies based on these, while the financial sector in a lot of nations still has weaknesses and financial risks are rising in emerging markets, she said.
CNR , Med region economies 11th edition, ten years seem like a hundred
2015/11/21
Meeting Politicians and local port authorities from Italy, Greece, Malta
2015/11/20 An executive project containing guidelines to build a logistics national platform, in particular in the south of Italy, to boost its competitiveness in the Mediterranean is the idea which may be supported by the EU 2014-2020 structural funds that Obi (Bank-Enterprises Economy and Finance Observatory) in cooperation with Assoporti and Confitarma will present Friday and Saturday during the course of the fifth edition of the Sorrento Conference, the international event that since 2010 brings to the city economists academics representatives of authorities, enterprise and finance. This year's edition will be centred on the theme of logistics and mobility in the Mediterranean with particular attention to the transport of wares.
Revised IMF forecasts signal gloom on global economic outlook
2015/01/20 Low oil prices will not provide a sufficient updraught to dispel the clouds hanging over the world economy, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday. In a sign of its increasing gloom about the medium term economic outlook, the IMF cut its world economic increase forecasts by 0.3 % points for both 2015 and 2016, despite believing cheaper oil represents a “shot in the arm”.