Spain has growing shortage of fresh water. Precipitation falls in winter, usually followed by a long, dry summer. Tourism and agriculture and horticulture, however, require enormous amounts of water throughout the year. Water reservoirs are running dry and water management is high on the political agenda and has already caused conflicts between the regional governments.

For it's waterneeds Refugio Marnes is dependent on rainwater we collect. This is stored underground in the old cistern that dates from the time that the Moors ruled in Spain.

When the cisterns are empty, we must buy fresh water that is brought in by truck. That's why our we want to maximize the storage capacity and to recycle the waste water. Our farm has three of those Moorish cisterns, only one of which is really ready for use at this moment. The total storage capacity could be a total of 100,000 liters. The coming years, our water management plan involves:

• restoration of the three Moorish cisterns to increase storage capacity
• construction of additional water storage

regarding waterrecylcling:

• connecting the main house and Los Establos to a water recycling system comprised of a grease trap, septic tanks (both realized summer 2009) and four reed units to further purify the water
• connecting an UV lamp for the eradication of the remaining micro-organisms
• to build a storage tank for the recycled water to be used when needed.

This way we can reuse the recycled water to irrigate the land that we want to restore into agricultural use. Water management is not just a matter of hrh prince Willem Alexander but also of Refugio Marnes. Questions or suggestions about our water management project or similar projects, please let us know. Contact us at Esta dirección de correo electrónico está protegida contra los robots de spam, necesita tener Javascript activado para poder verla