Water distribution management in South-East Spain: A guaranteed system in a context of scarce resources

Abstract

Growing global scarcity of water is forcing a change in their management models and the need to implement good governance schemes, understood as the implementation of legal, institutional and economic mechanisms that enable the efficient organisation of the activity developed by all of the agents involved in water management. In this sense, one of the greatest achievements in Spanish hydraulic history is the organisation called Mancomunidad de los Canales del Taibilla (MCT), whose existence usually goes unnoticed in one of the most arid regions of Europe: the South-East of Spain. Therefore, this study will analyse the MCT management model, based on the good governance of water, as well as their positive socio-economic impacts on population and areas supplied as a consequence of the quality and continuity of the urban supply, which has been extraordinarily beneficial for resolving health and hygiene and comfort problems. This is all thanks to the continual search for new sources of supply, in addition to efforts to improve leakage control, modernisation of management, educational campaigns implemented and the efficient and sustainable use of resources without financial unbalances.