Spain To Invest $200 Million In Water Desalination Plants Amid Drought - Reports

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th August, 2022) Spain intends to invest more than 200 million Euros ($203 million) in the expansion and construction of water desalination plants as the country faces severe droughts, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Friday, citing the Spanish state company Acuamed.

Spanish government plans to allocate 127.5 million euros to increase by 25% the desalination capacity in the south-east of the country by expanding five of the 11 main marine desalination plants in the autonomous communities of Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia, the report said. The governments of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, which operate their own stations, also plan to increase their capacity by 2027, with Catalonia seeking to double its plants' capacity in five years by investing 90 million euros, El Pais said.

Catalonia is planning the second largest investment in the expansion and construction of desalination plants since 2008, when severe drought forced the authorities to impose restrictions on the use of water in Barcelona and change the water policy in the region, the newspaper said.

After the expansion of another desalination plant at the Llobregat River's mouth in Catalonia, 45 out of every 100 liters of seawater are expected to suitable for human consumption.

This facility, opened in 2009, currently provides millions of homes in Barcelona with water.

Groups of entrepreneurs in the provinces of Murcia and Almeria are planning to build several of their own desalination plants to reduce their dependence on water transfer, the newspaper said. The water shortage situation in some areas of Spain is so serious that some municipalities have to rent small portable desalination plants, according to the report.

Spain is the top country in Europe and the fifth in the world by capacity for desalinated water production, which can potentially provide 34 million inhabitants with water, the Spanish Desalination and Reuse Association said. So far, 68 marine desalination plants have been installed in Spain, including on the Canary and Balearic Islands.

Many European countries have been experiencing extremely high temperatures in the past several months. Some countries have been impacted by droughts, while others are dealing with massive wildfires that engulf thousands of acres of land.