After the hardships of the Corona period, Germans want to travel again. Ibiza is one of the most attractive travel destinations for Germans, which is why ZDF commissioned a report on tourism in Ibiza. It not only reports on Ibiza's attractions, it should also illuminate the problems that arise from mass tourism.

One of these problems is the enormous water consumption. As a water pioneer, I was contacted by ZDF and accompanied in my work for a day.

The first stop was the Ibiza town desalination plant. Since the groundwater had fallen to a critical level and the water supply was no longer secure, the Water Alliance developed a concept for its recovery on behalf of the government. In addition to many other suggestions for improvement for more sustainable use, it was recommended that the required quantities be obtained from seawater by desalination. After many years of planning, approval procedures and construction, there is now enough water of good quality available all year round. The desalinated seawater is mixed with well water in a ratio that ensures drinking water quality and at the same time the groundwater supplies can slowly recover.

Unfortunately, word hasn't gotten around enough: the tap water is drinkable in almost all areas of Ibiza almost all year round without further treatment! An additional effect is the potential avoidance of large amounts of plastic waste.

Of course, desalination also has its negative sides: it requires enormous amounts of energy to push the salt water through the reverse osmosis membranes with extreme pressure. Unfortunately, electricity from renewable sources is not yet used on Ibiza. The resulting concentrate, water with twice the salinity of the sea, must also be disposed of and can disturb the balance in the sea and endanger seagrass meadows, for example.

The second stage was the construction of a new swimming pond, where we used new techniques in our search for ever more environmentally friendly construction techniques and to reduce the ecological footprint. To smooth the walls we used adobe, a mixture of earth, straw and swamp lime. We also had to extend and stabilize a terrain terrace. For this we used Hyperadobe, a similar mixture filled in old jute bags, stacked on top of each other like Lego bricks and compacted by machine. After curing, a stable wall of interlocking "stones" is created, obtained from local material, almost km 0. Tons of environmentally harmful concrete could be avoided. Our execution partner was again Bioconstruccion Ibiza. More on this project in a future newsletter.

The last step was the Sa Marina pilot project, which is prescribed below.

The report will be broadcast on August 28 at 6:00 p.m. in ZDF.reportage format.

Sa Marina is located in the south of Ibiza in an area where the groundwater has fallen significantly due to overexploitation. As a result, seawater flows in and the groundwater becomes salty. The aim of the "Sa Marina" pilot project is to prove that villas in rural areas, which have previously consumed enormous amounts of water, can be operated through intelligent and sustainable water management without further exploitation of the groundwater. This is done through the consistent use of rainwater and the reprocessing and use of waste water.

Nature-based solutions are used, as required by the EU Green Deal. In the medium term, the pilot project should lead to a change in the law that promotes and demands local, sustainable solutions as “good practices” instead of hindering them.

It is not only the rainwater from the roofs that is collected and stored in a separate cistern, as required by law. The rainwater that falls on the rocky hillside is first channeled through small canals ( key lines ) to seep away to the permaculture terraces. This massively reduces surface water runoff and erosion and remediates the groundwater. When it rains in Ibiza, it often takes the form of heavy showers. A typical time is the third week of August. Then so much rain falls in a short period of time that it cannot seep away even in this optimized system and runs off on the surface. In Sa Marina, this excess is channeled into an artificially created biotope with native freshwater vegetation, which also offers a large number of animal species the habitat they lost on Ibiza. When the biotope is full, the water flows into underground storage tanks, where it is protected from the sun and evaporation and is available for irrigation or use in the home.

Since these underground tanks and the biotope have so far been interpreted by the authorities as buildings requiring approval and (wrongly) as sealing of the landscape, they cannot be implemented legally, or only with great effort and approval procedures lasting years. Since the world needs good solutions quickly, we decided to build these minimally invasive tanks “illegally” in order to be able to prove how the concept works.

We were promptly caught by the environmental police and the head of the authorities immediately demanded a site inspection. After extensive discussion and explanation, she also recognized the dilemma that excellent, forward-looking water management is prevented by old-fashioned laws. In order to avoid sanctions and to encourage this fantastic project, she declared it a pilot project, with the proviso that I keep her informed of the results and improvements made. This also includes the development of biodiversity, carbon fixation, improvement of soil structure, water retention capacity, microorganisms... more on this in a later newsletter.

On April 8th this year, the University of the Balearic Islands, UIB, and the Water Alliance organized a “Technical Information Day on the Recovery of Aquatic Ecosystems” where I will present the Sa Marina pilot project. After that, the technicians and heads of authorities for environmental protection from various town halls came to visit the project on site.

In order to promote these solutions and a rapid adjustment of the law, a study was commissioned from the Water Alliance ( Alianza por el Agua de Ibiza y Formentera ) to show

* the historical use of water on Ibiza with comparable techniques

* that these are not "sealed areas" within the meaning of the law, since erosion is prevented and seepage is promoted and thus serve to remediate the groundwater

* the use in the house and garden replaces a groundwater extraction and this water concept should flow into the law as "good practice" in the medium term.

All of the waste water is biologically cleaned in a house sewage treatment plant and a downstream constructed wetland or reed bed filter so that it can be used in the garden or for flushing toilets. Drinking water is produced by condensing the humidity from the air with the help of solar energy, so water bottles are becoming obsolete.

Since enough rainwater falls on Ibiza, but most of it drains into the sea, we will build more rainwater tanks on the entire property in the long term and filter the water biologically to cover the entire water needs of the villa.

In the meantime, Daniele Pedretti from the University of Milan has become interested in the project and has installed sensors in the rainwater depot with which the water level can be checked via the Internet. In this way, data is obtained that shows which precipitation is necessary to fill the depot.