British geologist Gordon Knox is warning of the collapse of Maltese agriculture by 2025 due to the end of potable groundwater sources caused by over-extraction. JAMES DEBONO writes on Malta’s water crisis.
To farmers, this will not make for bedtime reading. Malta’s water table could be “unusable” for irrigation some time between 2015 and 2025 because of the increase of salinity in groundwater from borehole drilling, British geologist Dr Gordon Knox has warned.
At a lecture for the University of Malta’s physics department, Knox ominously warned of the “collapse of Maltese agriculture”, which presently relies on groundwater for irrigation and the island’s complete dependency on desalinisation processes.
Malta is facing a crisis on water due to over-extraction, usually illegally, from groundwater sources.
Groundwater extraction by the Water Services Corporation (WSC) has already declined by 36% over the past decade, because of a dramatic increase in salinity, creeping into the Maltese underground water table. The salinity is generated by sea water intruding into the groundwater sources, which lose pressure when too much water is extracted – usually through illegal boreholes.
A report prepared by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations in 2008 already warned that the government will have to double household water bills if no action is taken to safeguard Malta’s groundwater resources, which mainly consist of the mean sea level aquifers (MSLA): fresh water lenses floating on denser seawater, which is Malta’s major natural water resource.
Knox, who spent 28 years in oil and gas exploration with Shell, warned that in the absence of concrete measures to preserve groundwater, Malta will become dependent on desalination, a hefty energy-hungry process that already consumes between 6-8% of Malta’s power supply. This will make Malta hostage to the increasingly volatile international fluctuations in the price of oil.
Malta could also risk losing its groundwater reserve which would be essential for survival in worst-case scenarios, such as if an oil spill renders Malta’s desalination plants unusable.
Desalinating seawater already costs the Water Services Corporation five times as much to produce than groundwater. But this will only get worse as the price of oil is set to “rise tremendously” in the next 30 years, Knox warns.
Malta’s aquifer can endure a sustainable extraction of between 12 to 23 million cubic metres every year.
But studies show that the island is extracting 35 million cubic metres from both private and public boreholes – at least 12 million cubic metres more than it should.
Knox notes that that extraction beyond sustainable levels has already resulted in the contraction in the size of the fresh water lens, while the salinity of extracted water has increased. The sea water enters the water table when too much underground water is extracted from Malta’s estimated 8,000 boreholes. If nothing changes, the contraction will continue.
Knox describes this state of affairs as “the business as usual scenario until business ends” – but he proposes another more sustainable scenario in which ground water extraction does not exceed a sustainable amount, to ensure its conservation. One of the measures is that water is adequately priced. “Meter pricing would maintain a socially sensitive element for basic personal volume needs, but the real cost of water should be charged, without subsidy”.
He also suggested that a yearly €60 service charge, which everyone has to pay irrespective of consumption, should be reduced or removed while the price burden is put on actual consumption.
Even farmers should be charged for the groundwater they extract. Metering boreholes used by farmers without charging the groundwater consumption, as suggested by Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino, “would create no incentive for farmers to opt for more efficient methods like drip irrigation.”
Another long-term solution proposed by Knox is a shift in agriculture towards plant and animal products, which consume less water per kilogramme of product. This not only applies to commercial horticulture, agriculture and animal husbandry, but also to private and public gardens and parks. Plants which are tolerant to summer drought and a Mediterranean climate should replace water-thirsty plants in constant need of water in roundabouts and other landscaped areas.
Another solution is the re-use of sewage water (see story below). According to Knox, one of the problems facing Malta is the high salinity of its sewage. Even after microbes are removed in sewage treatment plants, the water produced remains too saline to make it fit for re-use. According to Knox, the high salinity in treated sewage is caused by illegal practices, such as the use of sea water by hotels for their toilet flushing systems, which are discharged into the drainage system.
In his presentation, Knox also observed that at its current price, tap water is 156 times cheaper than bottled table water – a “rip off” according to the British expert – considering that tap water in Malta conforms to EU regulations and is therefore fit to drink. According to Knox, this is an indication of how people are willing to pay a high price for processed water, while being reluctant to pay for tap water which is still wrongly perceived to come from an infinite supply.
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