Be the first to comment!Malta is stressed in terms of water resources – NSO
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This year World Water Day focuses on the need for cooperation between various stakeholders, which is essential for managing water resources in the most effective way.
In Malta, the need for effective management of water resources is pressing due to the limited availability of freshwater resources in comparison with the level of abstraction, with an upward trend in the Water Exploitation Index (WEI) between 2004 amd 2012. These values indicate a stressed to severely stressed country in terms of water resources.
Since 1995, the total yearly water production in Malta decreased by an average 2.9 per cent per year, mainly as a result of a vast programme of leakage control that drastically reduced the amount of water losses from the underground network of water mains.
This reduction in the system demand brought down the abstraction of groundwater by the WSC by approximately 7 million cubic metres, or a decrease of 34.5 per cent.
Malta, being an island, does not share any transboundary river basins or groundwater body with any other country. Water cooperation is thus present at the local and national level. There are 276 transboundary river basins worldwide: 64 in Africa, 60 in Asia, 68 in Europe, 46 in North America and 38 in South America.
Malta’s freshwater resources are totally dependent on precipitation, as no inflow or outflow of water resources from or to other countries takes place. Since 2004, the WEI has shown an increase averaging 3.5 per cent per year. This has occurred since groundwater abstraction went up by an average of 3.6 per cent per year, while freshwater resources, as calculated by the Long Term Annual Average (LTAA), have edged up annually by an average of 0.1 per cent.
The water produced for public consumption by the Water Services Corporation (WSC). On average, groundwater abstraction makes up 45.5 per cent of the plant’s water production, with the remaining share originating from the three desalination plants at Cirkewwa, Ghar Lapsi and Pembroke.
Water production is almost equivalent to the supply in the distribution network. As a result, during the period 1997-2012 the end-of-year water reserves of the WSC averaged 0.9 per cent of total annual water production.
