Marseille to Send Water to Barcelona by Boat to Help City Fight Drought
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 03.20.08
Image courtesy of JP Puerta via flickr
In a bid to stave off worsening drought conditions, Barcelona is looking to an unlikely source of support: Marseille, France. Société des eaux de Marseille (SEM), a firm that supplies water to the city of Marseille, and Aquas de Barcelona, a firm that fulfills the same role for Barcelona's residents, are close to signing a deal that would see the French supplier deliver up to 25,000 cubic meters a day by tanker-boat starting in May.
Barcelona's residents regularly consume close to 650,000 cubic meters of water a day; however, because of a severe drought that has lasted several months, the city's water supplies are at a record low - 22% less than normal levels. Its long-term strategy for dealing with a drier climate is the construction of a large desalination plant - with a capacity to process 200,000 cubic meters of water - before the end of 2009.
In the Mediterranean Basin, Marseille is one of the few cities sufficiently flush with large quantities of water to be able to supply other cities in the area; during the last three decades, SEM effectuated 226 tanker-boat deliveries - amounting to 1.5 million cubic meters of water - to several parched regions of Spain. It helps that Marseille's residents also consume much less water than their Spanish compatriots - about 300,000 cubic meters every day.
With climates becoming more arid around the world, we are likely on the cusp of a new era of international water trade. Although the increased commoditification of water will help price it more accurately, there is the threat that similar schemes will spark conflicts in cities or countries with poor access to water and severely harm the livelihoods of many.
Via ::Le Monde: Victime de la sécheresse, Barcelone envisage de faire venir de l'eau par bateau de Marseille (newspaper)
See also: ::Europe's Warmest Winter in 700 Years, ::Water Management in Spain Goes Digital
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Hmm, maybe they could learn to conserve a little?
Feppo, to be fair the article doesn't mention what efforts if any have been made with regards to conservation. Looking at the numbers the average Barcelona resident consumes 160 litres per day, the average Marseille resident consumes 210 litres per day, while the average USA resident consumes 260 litres a day.
So, while I haven't exactly undertaken a broad comparison, Barcelona doesn't seem to be doing too bad with their level of consumption.
You forget to mention that Barcelona receives on average 3.500.000 tourists per year, which effectively doubles the population of the city. Which means that the average citizen of Barcelona consumes just as much water as the average citizen of Marseille.
It is also worth checking out the ongoing negotiations to extend the canal bas rhone via pipeline to Barcelona :
http://www.brl.fr/SPIP/brlecarto/PagesHTML/plandesreseaux01.html
Peter