Lloret de Mar Town Council, together with the Lloret de Mar Tourism Business Board, today presented the town’s work plan for sustainable water management, which establishes lines of work with the aim of reducing the town’s dependence on drinking water and drastically reducing the average water consumption per inhabitant over the coming years.
Lloret de Mar is not in a situation of lack of water supply as it has access to the Tordera desalination plant, which guarantees a constant supply despite the drought. The Mayor of Lloret de Mar, Adrià Lamelas, explains that, nevertheless, “Lloret de Mar council and the business sector are aware that episodes of drought due to climate change will become increasingly frequent and it is therefore necessary to apply long-term solutions that ensure that our municipality makes the most of every drop of water. Our objective must be to reduce the average water consumption per person to well below the maximums currently set by the Catalan Water Agency. The lines of work we are developing should lead us to consolidate an average consumption of less than 200 litres per person per day”.
To achieve these savings, the City Council and the private sector are developing parallel action plans that should converge in the use of a resource that Lloret de Mar fortunately has in abundance: reclaimed water. At present, the municipality’s WWTP generates large surpluses of treated water after the purification process, which is returned to the natural environment via an underwater channel that returns it to the sea. The regenerated water is not drinkable, but it can be used for various purposes. At present, Lloret de Mar uses less than 10% of all the water regenerated by the WWTP and therefore the potential use of this resource is enormous. Current uses include street cleaning, sewerage, irrigation of landscaped areas (using tankers or specific connections such as the one in the Santa Clotilde Gardens), pitch & putt, and fire engines and those of forest defence associations.
New connections to the public reclaimed water network
This year, Lloret de Mar has incorporated new connection points to the reclaimed water network in the Fenals area, which has allowed it to intensify the use of reclaimed water for public uses and generate a saving of 23% in drinking water in one year for these chapters, which in high season require up to 39,000 litres of water per day. The connection point did not allow for the rapid loading of reclaimed water into high-capacity vehicles. However, this will be compensated for by the new connection point installed this week in Igualada street, which will significantly increase water savings. In 2024 the aim is to expand the network in the Rieral area with new connection points, although this part of the project is pending a previous intervention to be carried out by the ACA in this same area.
500,000 will also be invested in 2024 to upgrade sensitive pipes in the drinking water network, in order to prevent future water leaks that could occur in areas where the installations are older.
Objective: to accelerate the construction of the reclaimed water network.
In order to accelerate the pace of construction of this network, additional investment would be needed outside the Town Council’s own budget. Lloret de Mar hopes that new lines of aid for municipal projects will be established by the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Spanish government.
At the moment, the only aid announced by the Catalan government is for small municipalities. The town council is calling on the Catalan government to provide a line of aid designed to meet the needs of tourist towns of the size of Lloret de Mar.
Private sector initiatives: reducing water consumption in tourist accommodations
Enric Dotras, Vice President of the Lloret de Mar Tourism Business Board, explains that “the private sector in Lloret de Mar is an ally in this objective and is fully aware of the need to implement sustainable water consumption. In this sense, tourist establishments, campsites, flats and, notably, hotels are applying operational improvements that are already significantly reducing water consumption”.
In recent years, measures such as the following have been intensified in most establishments:
- Reduction of water flow in taps and showers.
- Replacement of shower heads to reduce water volume per minute.
- Replacement of bathtubs with shower trays.
- Toilet cisterns with 2 buttons for capacity limitation.
- Taps with water flow reduction: timed or automated.
- Laundries: Washing machines with maximum efficiency and low water consumption.
- Laundries: Systems for the water from the last rinse of a wash to be used for the pre-washing of the following washes.
- Reduction of the water level in swimming pools.
- Landscaping: use of vegetation adapted to the scarcity of irrigation.
- Reuse of excess water in swimming pools for cleaning work in outdoor communal areas.
- Rewards and incentives for sustainable customer behaviour: e.g. reducing towel and bed linen change.
33 Bioscore certified tourist accommodations
An example of the effort being made by tourist establishments to implement measures aimed at sustainability and efficient water management is the fact that this year the number of tourist accommodations accredited by Bioscore certification has reached 27, which represents more than 50% of the hotel beds in the destination. Bioscore recognises companies that strive to reduce their environmental impact and promote sustainable practices throughout their operations. It evaluates various aspects such as waste management, energy consumption, sustainable mobility, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, commitment to the local community and also, most notably, water consumption and conservation.
Bioscore certified hotels (which have implemented most of these measures) have generated water savings of 30-40%, and are now averaging 120-150 litres per person per day.
Connection of accommodation to the reclaimed water network
Last week, the Government of Catalonia published order EMT/265/2023 of 30 November, approving the regulatory bases to govern the call for applications for aid for projects aimed at reducing water consumption through reuse and savings by establishments providing tourist accommodation services. This measure provides for aid of a maximum of 1 million euros per company.
Lloret de Mar’s tourist accommodation establishments are working on the presentation of projects for this aid, which would be aimed at connecting their establishments to the public reclaimed water network. If approved, hotels in the areas of Lloret de Mar where the network has already been connected would be able to make this connection. Hotels with access to reclaimed water could use it for cleaning outdoor areas and watering gardens, among other uses. The Mesa Empresarial de Turisme estimates that this initiative could save a hotel between 35 and 40% of its water consumption.
Enric Dotras, Vice President of the Lloret de Mar Tourism Business Board, adds that “the use of regenerated water in hotels is feasible and offers all the sanitary guarantees, and is already used in other destinations around the world. However, the Tourism Business Board has asked the Generalitat whether there would be any impediment to making this connection”.
