The tourist paradise of the Balearic Islands faces its most uncomfortable mirror: The dry tap. While the archipelago faces a summer that points to record figures of visitors (As occurs throughout the summer), their water resources collapse to historical minimums. The situation is so critical that the municipality of Sóller barely has guaranteed water for 10 days, and Ibiza registers its worst reserves in a decade.
Sóller as an epicenter of the problem. The strongest alarm sounds in the Sierra de Tramutantana, in Mallorca. In Sóllera municipality of 13,000 inhabitants, the City Council has been forced to Decree emergency measures On August 29. Among these, it has been forbidden to fill pools with drinking water, water gardens or orchards, wash the car or clean the facade. Even the municipal cleaning service itself has the use of water to bucket the streets.
The situation, qualified by the mayor as “nothing encouraging”, has caused the anger of the neighbors. From the SOS Soller local platform, its spokesman, Bartu Miró, denounces a “complete neglect to leave the tourist do what he wants throughout the summer” As you collect The confidential. In his statements, he looked at that the Consistory has waited until the last day of August to act, when the shortage was a predictable and monitoring problem. “Now we are in emergency,” he says.
A ghost of the past. The fear that the neighbors have is not unfounded. Residents already remember episodes in the past in which the desperate water extraction of the wells caused the salinization of aquifers. Specifically, in 2001 ten of the 21 aquifers in Mallorca They were salinized, and some of them with levels much higher than the maximum potability limit. Something that can leave the water source unusable for many years.
In this way, we are facing a technical and management error that no one wants In August he had to apply supply cuts In different areas, including the hotels themselves.
An archipelago in Prealerta. What happens in La Tramuntana is not an isolated case, it is the symptom of a disease that is affecting the entire archipelago. According to the data provided by the seafire and water cyclethe situation of resources to July 2025 begins to be worrying.
Practically, all demand units are found in A prealert scenario for drought. Only Formentera and the southern zone of La Tramuntana are saved, which paradogically is where the municipalities with greater restrictions are located, such as Sóller. This alert level means, according to the regional administration itself, that “resources begin to diminish and it is necessary to start taking some management measures.”
Ibiza data are worrisome. The island suffers Your worst reservations of recent yearsbeing the same that was reported in June 2016 for the last time, touched by the state of drought alert. In the case of Menorca, the reserves are found right now in 40%, which marks its second worst historical record.
Formentera, despite having a less severe pre -alert state, also has a fragile situation. It has less than 400 liters of rain a year, and this causes the island to depend almost exclusively on the water produced by the Desalination which is an important energy cost.
How much water does tourism consume? While requested residents who do not wash the car or put the washing machine when it is full, environmental groups point to the tourist model of the islands as guilty. A report by the University of Les Illes Balears (UIB) already pointed to 25% of the total water consumption It was due to visitors to be received in the archipelago.
Pere Joan, spokesman for the Menys Turisme platform, Més Vida, criticizes that “the restrictions are usually applied in the least tourist areas and farthest from the sea”, suggesting a management that prioritizes the consumption of the visitor over the needs of the resident.
A technological solution. Before the collapse of natural resources, the Balearic Government has put a Action plan endowed with 288 million euros to improve the supply, mainly through the expansion and improvement of desalination plants and sanitation and purification networks. In addition, 4.4 million euros have been allocated to promote refined water reuse, a key measure to reduce pressure on aquifers.
The problem of desalination plants. Although these teams that convert sea water into drinking water through reverse osmosis are vital for the supply of many coastal areas, they have their inconveniences. Among them is the great energy impact, since the desalination process requires a large amount of energy, which in a context of energy transition involves an economic and environmental challenge.
But don’t stay here. The brine, the hypersaline residue that is returned to the sea, can damage marine ecosystems, especially the Postidonia grasslands, vital for Mediterranean health.
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