Tourism and water

By Justin Francis, responsibletravel.com

One of the biggest issues facing humankind is how we live within the limited natural resources of our planet. In recent weeks the media focus has been firmly on oil and food, and the realisation that demand is outstripping supply. Perhaps the other most reported issue is climate change - how we slow it, and how it will affect our lives.

While oil, food supply and climate change have dominated the headlines in recent weeks we forget about water at our peril. Access to fresh water lies at the heart of our ability to live sustainable lives (and reduced access to it will be one of the first and most destructive consequences of global warming).

Water should be central to any discussions about sustainability, food and coping with global warming. The tourism industry is both a heavy consumer of water, and an industry and relies on water for much of its activities. Why is it then that we spend so little time discussing it?

Tourism and water - the facts

More than half of Europe's cities are exploiting groundwater at unsustainable rates. Chronic water shortages are already affecting 4.5m people in Catalonia, where authorities are pressing for the construction of a pipeline to divert water from the Rhone in France to Barcelona.

Mexico City is sinking because of the amount of water being pumped out from beneath its foundations. It was once a lush land of lakes. But over the last 500 years the lakes have been drained. With no adequate drainage system, today rainwater mixes with sewage and is used for irrigation. The city is now at serious risk of running out of clean water. An estimated 40% of the city's water is lost through leaky pipes built at the turn of the century. (Source: BBC World Water Crisis)

Tourism is by nature a heavy user of water. The future of Caribbean tourism is therefore closely linked to the region's ability to meet its fresh water requirements. He says it is vital that Caribbean islands put order in their water resources management arrangements, so that tourism can be made sustainable overtime.

The countries of the Caribbean are diverse and not all have the same level of water resources. In the case of Dominica, for example, there seems to be an abundance of water while Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda and the Bahamas are regarded as water-stressed islands. (Source: Peter Springer, development consultant)

Tourism and water - the numbers

2.5 billion gallons is the amount needed to...

Support 4.7 billion people at the UN daily minimum, or

Irrigate the world's golf courses

On average 6,500 cubic meters of water per day will support...

60,000 villagers, in Thailand, or

One golf course in Thailand.
(Source: worldwatch.org)

Golf courses in the West Country around Bath have been warned: that if they don't cut their water usage and return 10% of their course to wildlife, direct action will be taken against them. (Source: West Country Life)

The average tourist uses as much water in 24 hours as a third world villager would use to produce rice for 100 days. (Source: The United Nations)

Calpe and Denia fresh water is so scarce that residents must buy bottled water to drink. The Mayor of Capri - 800 miles across the Mediterranean explained that the island had run out of water and blamed "low budget tourists." (Source: The Independent)

Goa has been declared a drought area…except the areas around tourist's hotels, tourist's hotspots, and ministers bungalows. (Source: Alexyz, Goan cartoonist)

Benidorm has more than 130 hotels, with 30,000 swimming pools across the resort. Dry almost all year round Benidorm depends on extracting water stored underground. As its level drops, seawater creeps in poisoning surrounding farmland. Water is being removed from aquifers 2 or 3 times faster than it can be replenished. (Source: Dr Jose Luis Rubio, European Society for Soil and Water Conservation)

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