Water imposes the limit on the growth of the Balearic Islands

When water is not enough, room for manoeuvre runs out. It is the most basic limit any society has. And the Balearic Islands have started this summer closer to that limit than in recent years. Water reserves have dropped again. Menorca registers the worst levels. Almost fifty municipalities – 47 out of the 67 that exist – entered the summer in a state of alert or pre-alert for drought. The Government itself admits that climate change will make droughts longer, rainfall more irregular, and aquifer recharge more difficult. These are not catastrophic forecasts, they are official data.

But while the supply of water decreases, demand increases. The population is growing, the number of visitors is growing, and new urban developments continue to be approved. The Government, in fact, intends to increase by up to 45% the buildability of land declared strategic to facilitate housing construction. They justify this with the serious housing crisis, but they do not answer an essential question: where will the water come from?

The answer, today, does not exist. Desalination plants and announced investments are necessary, but they will not solve the immediate problem. New infrastructure will still take years to be fully operational. During this time, the numbers do not add up. There are only two possibilities: continue to tap the aquifers more and more, with the risk of depleting and permanently degrading them, or accept that growth also has physical limits. And this is where the political debate remains nil or too timid. There is a lot of talk about producing more water, but very little about consuming less. There is talk of new infrastructure, but almost never about setting limits to growth. They want to build more housing without facing that each new resident, each new tourist spot, and each new swimming pool increase a pressure that is already difficult to sustain.

Managing a scarce resource also implies making uncomfortable decisions. It is necessary to reduce the highest consumptions, reinforce controls on large users and assume that universal access to essential water must be guaranteed, but abusive consumption must be made much more expensive. It is not a popular measure, nor is it to talk about limits to tourism, urban growth and the continuous increase in population. But governing consists of facing problems before they become irreversible.

The Balearic Islands have built a model that has always presupposed that, faced with any need, it would be possible to continue growing. Water reminds us that this is not the case. Water, right now and in the most eloquent way, is the resource that marks the boundary between what is viable and what is more than evident that it is no longer so.