Malta’s Water Scarcity Challenges: Past, Present, and Future Mitigation Strategies for Sustainable Water Supplies

Abstract

The small Mediterranean country of Malta, an island located between Italy and North Africa, has been facing and will continue to face water stress and scarcity in the coming years, receiving the designation as the most water stressed country in Europe. In the past, Malta’s water challenges were centered around water quantity concerns, but in more recent years, the severity of their water stress has been strengthened by the deterioration of the groundwater quality and quantity. Through the over-extraction of their groundwater, saltwater intrusion has steadily occurred into their freshwater aquifer systems, worsening their groundwater quality for both domestic and agricultural purposes. The objective of this paper is to conduct an extensive review on the history of Malta’s water problems and how Malta is working to combat its water scarcity concerns. Additionally, this paper investigates the impact of Malta’s water scarcity on its food and energy security challenges. Our study concludes that while Malta has obstacles to overcome in their pursuit of water security and sustainable development, the future remains hopeful, with several alternatives still available. Some of the alternatives explored in this review include wastewater reuse, increased awareness, use of alternative energy sources, rainwater harvesting, and implementation of nation-wide strategic water policies.

Geochemical State of Wilga River Environment in Kraków (Poland)—Historical Aspects and Existing Issues

“…Aquatic systems are a very important element of the environment, as they provide the habitat for biological life, represent a water source for humans, but also function as a collector of various contaminants and pollutants, derived e.g., from wastewater discharge, fossil fuel combustion or atmospheric deposition, generally connected with growing urbanization and industrialization [1,2]. The deterioration of water quality and quantity is a worldwide problem that concerns not only the developing but also the developed areas of the Earth [3], including European countries [4][5][6], e.g., Spain [7], Portugal [8], Malta [9] and Poland [10][11][12]. Both the quality and quantity of water resources in Poland are relatively poor when compared to other countries in Europe and the European Union.…”

Past and future evolution of the onshore-offshore groundwater system of a carbonate archipelago: The case of the Maltese Islands, central Mediterranean Sea

“…v. The estimated volume of freshened groundwater offshore the Maltese Islands at present is ∼1 km 3 . This compares with ∼0.013 km 3 produced from various groundwater sources annually in the last 10 years (Hartfiel et al, 2020). If these water requirements were to be maintained constant and the OFG could be exploited, the latter would provide an alternative supply to onshore groundwater for ∼75 years (if part of the OFG is desalinized).…”

Water-Quality Monitoring with a UAV-Mounted Multispectral Camera in Coastal Waters

“…With a population density of around 1500 people per m 2 , the Maltese archipelago (Figure 1), constitutes one of the most densely populated countries in the world. In recent years, the levels of tourism activities have increased, and approximately two million tourists visit Malta, Gozo, and Comino (the three main islands) per year [34,35]. For this reason, the Maltese coastal waters are subject to a wide range of anthropogenic activities that exert pressure which may impact the quality of the environment.…”

“…CSTP was inaugurated in January 2009 and has the capacity to treat 6700 m 3 of wastewater per day. CROP was inaugurated in 1982 and has the capacity to treat 18,600 m 3 of water per day [34].…”