MEDITERRANEAN: Tourism is damaging fresh water in the Mediterranean basin, and the growing demand from water-guzzling golf courses, hotels and aquaparks will further strain resources, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warned yesterday.
A tourist staying in a hotel uses on average one-third more water than a local inhabitant, while the annual consumption of a golf course is equivalent to that of a town of 12,000 inhabitants, the WWF said in a report.
"The tourism industry depends on water, and at the moment it is destroying the very resource it needs," said Mr Holger Schmid, of the WWF's Mediterranean fresh water programme, ahead of the report's publication.
The damage includes pollution, the shrinking of coastal wetlands that are tourist attractions as well as havens for endangered animals and plants, and the tapping of non-renewable groundwater in some regions.
The problem is compounded by the fact the peak summer season for tourists coincides with the period when irrigation needs are greatest in agriculture.
The total number of tourists heading for Mediterranean coastlines is expected to rise to over 235 million per year by 2025, or roughly double 1990 levels.
On Spain's Costa Brava, a favourite destination for Britons and Germans, the population of 27 towns jumps from 150,000 in winter to 1.1 million in summer, causing water demand to surge.
In Cyprus, where water resources are already very tight, eight golf courses are under construction.
The WWF said local authorities in tourist hotspots tended to tackle the booming demand for water by increasing supply, which in the long-term was not sustainable.
It said governments were pushed into ever more drastic and costly measures to get large quantities of water to arid regions, citing a €3.8 billion Spanish plan to divert water from the Ebro river in the fertile north to the south-east.
The new Spanish government has just scrapped the plan, which faced fierce opposition from environmentalists and the regions that were going to lose water.
Instead, the WWF said, authorities should focus on reducing demand.
Installing simple, cheap devices such as water-saving taps and toilets can reduce consumption by up to 50 per cent.
The report includes a long list of ways in which tourists, hotels and governments could cut water consumption.
These include such measures as turning the tap off while shaving or choosing drought-resistant native plants for landscaping.