Water crisis or governance crisis?

Last Saturday, the new Law 4/2026 on urgent measures to accelerate strategic projects was published, which reduces water sufficiency controls on urban planning. It is another step in reducing controls and further promoting the urban growth initiated with the decrees on administrative simplification and urgent actions approved during the last two years. These regulations have been approved at a time when we were suffering one of the strongest droughts we remembered and in which urban development is the main cause of the overexploitation of aquifers, which reach 91% in Ibiza and 94% in Formentera of total water consumption, and up to 70% in Mallorca and Menorca. The island of Ibiza is a good example of this trend. In 1996, the main use was agricultural (54%) and to a lesser extent, urban and residential uses (45%). Thirty years later, agriculture has almost disappeared and its consumption now only accounts for 7% of the total. In contrast, urban development does not stop.

As a result, Formentera has its aquifer in poor condition, in Ibiza, 13 out of 16 aquifers are already in poor condition. In the case of Menorca, 4 out of 6 overexploited or contaminated aquifers are reached, and in Mallorca, half are deteriorated. Even so, growth continues, at the cost of losing the quality of tap water, or suffering supply cuts, as happened last summer in many towns on the islands. If we extend this analysis to wastewater treatment plants, the scenario is equally bad. We continue to see overloaded treatment plants, such as the new Palma treatment plant, still unbuilt for more than twenty years, or an obsolete sewage system that causes the discharge of poorly treated wastewater into the sea. This season, the closure of beaches in the bay of Portmany due to a discharge of fecal matter has already been in the news.

For all this, given the water crisis suffered by the Balearic Islands, any type of urban development that does not have guaranteed water should be stopped, not the opposite. Even more so when we face an inability of administrations to improve water infrastructure at the same pace as urban development. And it is not valid to use the housing crisis as an excuse to grow more and deactivate environmental controls. We find a Government that is unfortunately failing in water management. In the last two progressive legislatures, progress was made in territorial protection, but the improvement of water infrastructure was not accelerated. On the other hand, in this legislature, positive steps have been taken by increasing investment and providing more staff, but these measures are useless if at the same time the door continues to be opened to more urbanization.

Given this, there is an urgent need for water governance oriented towards the general interest, which counterbalances the particular interests of builders, developers, and investment funds. Responsible institutions should listen to society, limit growth, reduce water demands, and close the water cycle. This is what the majority of sectors of Ibizan society recently demanded at the water dialogue table promoted by the Alliance. Instead, more construction and more desalination plants are still being promoted without consensus. In short, more democratic governance is needed where critical issues on our islands, such as water and territory, are decided with participation and transparency, as already established by the European Water Framework Directive approved in 2000.

This June, Pope Leo XIV visited Spain and it is striking that the highest representative of the Church, a historically conservative institution, urges political forces to move away from polarization and reclaim basic values such as solidarity. This Pope continues the work of his predecessor Francis, who stood out for his defense of the environment. His words remind us of what other leaders of apparently distant ideologies have already said, such as the former president of Uruguay Pepe Mujica, who already warned that the ecological crisis is a governance crisis. They may sound like empty words, but the solution for fragile and overcrowded islands like ours also requires acting with social and ecological ethics. Our rulers should take note of what such different leaders agree on: that there are basic rights that should not enter into political games, such as the right to decent housing, the regularization of emigrants, and, in the case at hand, the protection of the territory and the recovery of aquifers.