North Africa and the Middle East are the two most water stressed parts of the world. They were already traditionally arid and now with even more population stress on supplies, their needs are growing. Vacationers put even more pressure on the water supply, that’s why water conservation technology, especially in water guzzling hotels, is so important.
The Canary Islands, a group of islands off of Western Sahara, and Dubai, a city in United Arab Emirates, are particularly water strapped vacation destinations. This new infographic shows how these hotels are using their own desalination and water conservation techniques to save this precious resource.
The Canary Islands have always been water stressed because they have few rivers or sources of fresh water on the islands. As a result, getting clean drinking water has always been a problem. Gran Melia, an upscale hotel in the Canary Islands, is now using its own desalination technology to treat seawater. Their desalination system produces water for their hotel by extracting and converting seawater. They also recycle water at the hotel to be used on their gardens.
The residents of UAE have some of the highest per capita water use of any country in the world. And at the same time, Western Sahara and UAE are number 1 and number 2 on the list of the world’s most water stressed nations. The Park Hyatt in Dubai is taking steps toward conserving water by treating wastewater with reverse osmosis. Using this filtration process saves enough water to fill 62 Olympic size pools per year. But these are very small steps when you consider that while tourism is an industry in itself that puts significant amounts of money toward each nation’s economy, there has to be a balance between smart water use and tourism. These new water technologies are a good place to start. But much more needs to be done.
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