Almost 500 years ago, the Knights of the Order of St John had described Malta as a barren rock with no water.
The order had just been thrown out of Rhodes and Charles V of Spain had offered them Malta, then part of the Kingdom of Sicily, as an alternative.
Five centuries later little seems to have changed and a report drawn up by the National Statistics Office on the occasion of World Water Day could have well been penned by the Knights.
The NSO concluded that Malta was “a stressed to severely stressed country in terms of water resources”.
The water exploitation index, a figure that takes into account groundwater abstraction as a percentage of long-term freshwater resources, is a primary indication of how stressed a country’s water resources are.
According to the NSO the index continued its upward trend, reaching 42.3 per cent last year from 33.9 per cent in 2004.
With groundwater abstraction going up by an average of 3.6 per cent annually and freshwater resources rising by 0.1 per cent, the index has increased by an average of 3.5 per cent per year.
World Water Day is celebrated today and this year’s theme is water cooperation, especially in those countries that share resources.
As Malta has no cross-border river flows, freshwater resources depend on rain.
“The need for effective management of water resources is pressing due to the limited availability of freshwater resources in comparison with the level of abstraction,” the NSO warned.
A redeeming factor is that the Water Services Corporation has drastically reduced groundwater extraction for public consumption.
This was possible after the corporation reduced leakages in its underground distribution system, allowing it to produce less water.
Last year the WSC drew 13.3 million cubic metres of groundwater, down from the 20.3 million cubic metres extracted in 1995. On average, groundwater abstraction makes up 45.5 per cent of the WSC’s production, with the rest originating from three desalination plants.
But the reduction in groundwater abstraction by the WSC was overshadowed by water drawn from the ground by the agriculture sector.
Groundwater used for irrigation accounted for 26.5 per cent last year, up from 16.6 per cent in 2004, confirming agriculture was the largest single consumer.
This was a concern for the Malta Water Association, an advocacy group, which said the aquifers’ sustainable yield was determined at 25 million cubic metres per year by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. Agriculture alone accounts for this yield being reached.
“This high level of groundwater extraction for agriculture should be determined and justified so as to protect and preserve the national water resources for other uses which are of vital importance, such as the public water supply,” the association said, advocating measures to reduce the volume of water extracted from the aquifers.
The group called for a clear definition of ‘farmer’ because not all registered farmers contributed to environmental stewardship and food production.
“Some individuals may try to use the title of ‘farmer’ to attain a water quota and use it for non-farming activities such as the sale of water by means of water bowsers,” the association said.
It also urged the agricultural sector to shift from groundwater extraction to a more sustainable source of water and called for a simpler process that allowed farmers to construct rural reservoirs to collect rain water runoff.
Other proposals included an eco-tax on artificial fertilisers that contain high nitrate levels to avoid groundwater pollution and for landscaping plans to ban plants that consume a lot of water.