Sustainable water management in the European Islands

In the arid areas of the European Union there exist locations in which ther e is scarcity of water relative to the demand and the water demand has subs tantial temporal variations, rising during the summer many times over the a nnual average. Locales where such conditions exist are found primarily, but not exclusively, in the Mediterranean basin. Where water resources are lim ited relatives to demand, their sustainable management is the instrument th rough which economic growth can be attained, with due regard for protection of the environment. The proposed alternative to traditional water supply m odes consists in desalinating brackish groundwater, instead of seawater, co upled with an effective strategy for controlling saltwater intrusion that e nhances the hydrologic budget through reuse of wastewater. The economic via bility of this approach is to be examined. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. A ll rights reserved.