So, Barcelona is running out of water. What should or can they do?
Barcelona received its first seaborne shipment of drinking water yesterday, part of an unprecedented emergency plan to tackle the city\’s worst drought in decades.
The tanker carrying five million gallons (23 million litres) of water from nearby Tarragona is just the first to help to alleviate the growing shortages in one of Spain\’s top tourist destinations, which has already resulted in hosepipes being banned and many fountains turned off.
One reservoir has fallen to such a low level that the remains of a village flooded in 1962 have reappeared.
Other water shipments are due from the French city of Marseilles, and, in August, from a desalination plant in Almería, on the south coast.
Hurrah for trade! Movinfg resources from lower to higher value uses!
Look at Malta.
It imports all its electricity, water and most of its goods and food. It manufactures very little, it grows very little food, it makes a few quid from tourism and a few quid from being a port in the middle of the Med (which may have been relevant in days of yore, when ships had to stock up every couple of weeks – heaven knows what relevance it is now, where a modern ship can cross the Med in a couple of days) and somehow by a miracle, their standard of living is just as high as anywhere else in Europe (plus they get the sunshine).
And, for the Nimby’s out there, it is the most densely populated country in Europe as well.