SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 9 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Council of the Government of the Canary Islands has given the go-ahead on Tuesday for a multi-year spending of 11,931,300 euros to finance eight desalination plants that will be provided by the Canary Islands Executive to the Island Water Councils of the islands with the aim to boost water resources for agricultural irrigation.
Apart from these facilities, which have been contracted by the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food Sovereignty from the Canary Islands Institute of Technology (ITC), there are two additional stations that will be funded through a grant of 1.5 million euros from the department.
In total, there will be ten new infrastructures with a desalination capacity of 22,600 cubic metres per day, equating to approximately 8.24 million cubic metres per year.
This initiative aims to tackle the water supply challenges faced by agriculture due to drought conditions resulting from inadequate rainfall and recent thermal anomalies, particularly in the past few months. This situation, coupled with deficiencies in supply networks and the obsolescence of some large production infrastructures, has led to the declaration of a water emergency by some island authorities and the implementation of restrictive measures in certain municipalities.
Water scarcity leads to diminished crop yields, impacting the quality and quantity of production, and contributes to the desertification of farmlands, hindering food production and escalating production costs, leading to reduced farm profitability, the government highlighted in a statement.
Providing water resources for the primary sector was a key demand of agricultural associations during the rural protests that unfolded in several European nations earlier this year.
Although this falls under the jurisdiction of the island councils, the Canarian Executive has pledged to collaborate with representatives of these groups to find solutions, given the impact of this situation on farmers and ranchers in the islands and its commitment to the producers of the archipelago.
The desalination plants, funded by the Rural Development Programme (RDP) through EAFRD funds, will be handed over to the Island Water Councils (responsible for their management) and will be situated in locations proposed by them in La Palma, La Gomera, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, El Hierro, Tenerife and Gran Canaria.
2,500 CUBIC METRES PER DAY
The capital and Meridian Island will each accommodate two facilities. All facilities will possess a desalination capacity of 2,500 cubic metres per day, except for the two in El Hierro, each having 1,300 cubic metres per day.
More specifically, these are seawater reverse osmosis plants, simple to transport and designed by ITC, a leading name in R&D&I in desalination.
Developed within the framework of the ‘DESALRO 2.0’ project, they are capable of addressing emergency situations with minimal energy consumption in the market.
At a scale of 2,500 cubic metres per day, they achieve 1.86 kWh/m3 compared to commercial developments that attain 2.35 kWh/m3. Furthermore, the water obtained is suitable for irrigation with a boron content below 1 mg/l.
