Water consumption grows in Menorca with the lowest reserves in the Balearics

PalmaThere is not enough water for everyone. Even more so in Maó, where the City Council has decided to bring forward the usual restrictions of these past summers. It is already prohibited in the city for companies and establishments to clean cars in the street and for individuals to clean boats and water gardens. Cruise ships can no longer refuel at the port either. Even so, a good part of the water served to the population continues to be non-potable and is mixed with water from other wells, even from outside the municipality, to guarantee at least the quantity, if not the quality, that is needed.

Neither the successive awareness campaigns, nor the increased use of the Ciutadella desalination plant, nor the implementation of digital control and leak detection systems have so far had the expected effect in Menorca. Water reserves are, at the start of the season, only at 43% of capacity, eight points below April 2025, the lowest level in the Balearic Islands.

The data recently released by the Menorca Socio-Environmental Observatory (Obsam) also confirms that, far from decreasing, both water consumption and distribution through municipal networks are once again on the rise on the island. This trend continues and 2025 marked the highest recorded figure in Menorca in the last 20 years, 12,925,193 cubic meters, only surpassed by the 13,145,157 recorded in 2006. Urban consumption, which accounts for just over half (6,894,407 cubic meters), is the highest in 20 years, while that of urbanizations, 5,805,979 cubic meters, had not been so high since 2019, before the pandemic. In fact, although urbanizations only account for 18% of the registered population on the island, the growth in the last year confirms that they already receive 45.7% of the water extracted from the subsoil for urban uses. The seasonality of consumption is so strong that in August three times more water is supplied than in February.

Ciutadella, the one that consumes the most

Ciutadella, the Menorcan municipality with the largest population, territory, and tourist spots, also concentrates the island's highest water consumption, around 37.5%. This is more than double that of Maó, which consumes 18%, and triple that of the other two most tourist municipalities, es Mercadal and Sant Lluís, with 14% and 11%, respectively. Consumption growth has been very significant in recent years in municipalities like es Mercadal, which have supplied 15% more water than in 2024. In total, 1.8 million cubic meters more than a year ago. Ciutadella and Alaior have also consumed more water, quite the opposite of the municipalities in the Llevant de Menorca region, where consumption has decreased.

The Obsam draws attention in its latest report to this increase, which has been registered for three years and breaks a downward trend that had been followed without exception in Menorca since 2014. A fact that it also attributed to the effect of the new water management plants: the desalination plant in Ciutadella, in operation since 2019, and the denitrification plants that Maó and es Castell launched in 2017. The data takes into account domestic, industrial, and tourist consumption. But a distinction is also made between the extraction source, and in this case, the data is more positive. The simple fact of using desalinated water has helped reduce aquifer extraction, which is lower than 25 years ago. If in 1999, 12,444,642 cubic meters were extracted from wells and water reserves, now only 11,669,923 are used. A significant figure considering that the seasonal population now served practically doubles that of a quarter of a century ago. Consequently, per capita water consumption of the de facto resident and tourist population has also fallen to historic lows. If 25 years ago each person consumed an average of 363 liters of water per day, now 273 per capita are counted, still above the recommended level.

Direct extraction from aquifers will have to be further reduced in the coming years. This can be helped, at least in Ciutadella, by greater use of the desalination plant which, seven years after its launch, is still only used at one-third of its capacity. The City Council buys 1.3 cubic hectometers of water per year from the Government, when the plant can produce 3.5.

The Directorate General of Water Resources asks the Ciutadella City Council to acquire more water in order to depend more on desalinated water and thus rest the aquifers to a greater extent. The measure, which will be used this very summer to supply potable water again to the southern districts of La Caleta, Cala Blanca, and Santandria, is also necessary to authorize the population growth planned in the municipality's new General Plan, which has been blocked for this reason for almost ten years.

Other towns, such as es Migjorn Gran, have managed to significantly reduce water leaks, which until recently caused network losses of over 30% in many sections. Now, however, the City Council is about to install an intelligent system for controlling leaks and is the only one in all of Menorca to have approved a pioneering project, as a roadmap, to take advantage in the future of the regenerated water from the treatment plant to irrigate streets, gardens, and public areas of the town and Sant Tomàs. The cost of the necessary actions, including the construction of two new reservoirs, is estimated at almost one and a half million euros.