AECID - Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo

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The water issue is one of the most serious problems in the Mediterranean area. It is a basic resource, vital for the development of the region, despite being very scarce. Over 60% of renewable water resources in the area are overexploited and there is a real risk of their exhaustion in the medium term. On the other hand, in many areas of the Mediterranean basin there is a clear lack of rainfall, that worsens the desertification processes experienced.

Some Mediterranean countries are exploiting water from aquifers, and overexploiting this renewable source of groundwater; there are more and more examples of seawater filtering into groundwater reserves, thus leading to salinisation of the water. As a consequence of the pressures arising from human activity, water quality is undergoing a continual process of degradation.

Some of the main factors underlying this growing demand for water are the expansion of the area of irrigated land (up to 80% of water consumption is accounted for by agriculture), increased industrial and service-sector activity and population growth, as well as poor management and the inefficiency of many of the systems used for water production and supply.
 

Given this situation, there is a special motivation for promoting actions to preserve and improve water quality, to protect water sources and to economize consumption. At the same time, alternative sources of water supply should be promoted and different types of users made aware of the need to save water.

The Azahar programme promotes actions in the following areas:

• Support for the implementation of water-saving systems and/or the enabling of the appropriate exploitation of existing supplies, including the use of desalinisation techniques, high-efficiency irrigation technology and the reutilisation of domestic wastewater and treated industrial wastewater.
• Promotion of improved systems for the implementation and management of the production, supply and distribution of drinking water, and development of liquid sanitation networks.
• Support for efforts to improve the quality of water intended for human consumption.
• Promotion and implementation of techniques of aquifer recharge.