In Spain, more and more episodes of lack of water are being suffered in certain areas, even in territories that until now were considered humid. The objective is focused on improving efficiency and, consequently, sustainability in water management. For this, the development and improvement of water technologies is essential.
Along these lines, the Puerto de la Cruz City Council and aqualia, the company responsible for the management of the municipal water service of the municipality, have presented on the occasion of World Water Day (by its acronym WFD), which takes place every year on the 22nd March, and under the slogan “Use public showers and footbaths with your head”, the “I am Aguahorrador” campaign, aimed at establishing control of the water supply in the bathing areas of the Porto coast.
Members of the Porto government team were present at the event, which took place in the area around San Telmo beach, including Mayor Marco González, and the Councilor for Community Well-being, Educational Action and Healthy Practices. Flora Perera, and on behalf of the aqualia company, Braulio Domínguez and Federico Mendoza, production manager and service manager respectively.
“The great challenge is climate change and its impact on the integral water cycle on our islands, which are subject to increasingly significant water stress and where, therefore, we must have sustained planning. For this reason, it is necessary to take measures, both on a small and large scale, to reverse the current situation”, stressed Mayor Marco González.
The first of the actions of this campaign consists of regulating the water supply in the showers and footbaths in the bathing areas of San Telmo, Playa Jardín and Punta Brava, but with the idea of extending it to the entire coast of Porto, with the consequent saving of water and care of the environment. This will be possible by installing solenoid valves with time controllers. The hours will be from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. in summer time and from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. the rest of the year, always open to provide this service after hours if required by any special circumstance.
This new initiative between the Porto government team and aqualia reinforces the close public-private collaboration that proves to be a very valuable tool for efficient management. Water is key to human well-being and can only become a renewable and sustainable resource if it is well managed”, said the Councilor for Community Well-being Flora Perera.
In the words of Mendoza, the company’s service manager, “on the one hand, the consumption of the different deposits of the municipality and its sectors are controlled daily in the data monitoring center, being able to detect in the first instance and very quickly any consumption anomaly in the network”.
In addition, the company schedules weekly night work aimed at reviewing this type of incident and locating and repairing leaks in the network. Once the incident has been located, a work report is immediately generated in Aqualia Work Orders (WO), a proprietary tool for the company’s daily work, both for maintenance actions and for incidents, in order to confirm what they had recorded the sensors of the counters in the area, reaching this work order to the morning shift personnel who carry out its repair.
In the case of bathing areas, numerous incidents have been detected that could be avoided by installing solenoid valves with time controllers, eliminating incidents at times when these services are not used, thus avoiding possible night-time water losses. “After agreeing with the City Council, it has been decided to implement this first action, aimed at the efficient management of the resource and thanks to this, in Puerto de la Cruz we have a hydraulic performance of more than 83% when the national average is 77%.”
For Domínguez, “efficient water management is gaining more and more importance on the international agenda. In this scenario, companies specialized in the management of the integral water cycle play a key role, since we are technically qualified to help administrations, in this case the Puerto de la Cruz City Council, with which we have a long and close track record of public-private collaboration, to face challenges in terms of sustainability and to develop innovation initiatives to put water resources at the forefront of sustainability and human health care.”
With this initiative, the first of many, Aqualia and the Puerto de la Cruz City Council intend to raise awareness among the population about the importance of adopting simple daily habits that have a positive impact on the environment and contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of United Nations.
