Continuing the Water Battle

In Dr. Gordon Knox’s article “Water – A Crisis?” published in October 2008, 2.5% of Earth’s surface water is in the form of freshwater, the rest is considered salt water. Of the 2.5%, 68.9% is locked in ice, 30.8% is groundwater and 0.3% is in lakes and rivers spread across the world. A very small amount of freshwater is available for the world, and we are running out.

The last few days in Malta were jam packed with information about Malta's position and future concerning water and the limited amount within the boundaries of the tiny country. The Malta Water Association is focusing on spreading the awareness about the critical condition that Malta is in. I was able to meet with 4 of the about 15 members of the Malta Water Association (MWA) and discuss their opinions.

In an interview, Mr. Julian Mamo, Water Engineer and Member of the MWA, described the decrease in knowledge about water scarcity. He described how his grandparents were very aware of the water levels, because they were required to use the rivers and cisterns spread throughout the island. When the three reverse osmosis plants that currently run were built, however, many people stopped worrying about water. Where as before you had to walk down to the local cistern or river, now all that needed to be done was turn the faucet on. Water became more accessible, more easily attainable, and therefore less of a concern.

According to the members of the MWA, Malta's freshwater aquifers will not last, with it even being predicted that it's end will be during our lifetime. There are two freshwater aquifers in Malta, the Perched and the Mean Sea Level. The Perched Aquifer sits above Malta's Blue Clay layer and the Mean Sea Level lies just under the island, above the very salty, very dense sea water of the Mediterranean and under the Lower Coralline Limestone layer.

In the recent past and today, the freshwater aquifers are being depleted faster than they can be replenished by rainwater, due to numerous boreholes that have been drilled through the layers of rock and clay and pump up unknown amounts of water daily. There are about 8,000 registered boreholes, with thousands of other unregistered, and unwatched. One would think that the solution, then, is simple; register all the boreholes and use technology to watch the amounts of water that are being pumped up through them. However, questions arise on how to do this. How would you find every unregistered borehole? Could you make people register something they don’t claim to have? How much money would have to go into a project like this to see a successful completion? The answer: a lot. Short of visiting every home in Malta, there is no for sure way to record how many boreholes there are or whether or not people have them.

According to “Water – A Crisis?” in 2007, the measured ground water that was being extracted through registered boreholes was about 13.4 million cubic meters per year. Estimating for the unregistered boreholes, add 16 million cubic meters and there is a grand total of about 29.4 million cubic meters per year being pumped up from the freshwater aquifers.

Another threat to the aquifers is contamination. The Perched Aquifer sits just below many farms and fields, and with the increasing use of pesticides and chemicals for growing crops is in danger of being contaminated. The chemicals used for plants and fertilizers seep down through the rock layers and into the Perched Aquifer, and as Dr. Gordon Knox stated during an interview, once an aquifer is contaminated, there is nothing you can do to clean it there. You would need to pump up the water and clean it through a plant, taking millions of dollars and a lot of time.

The Mean Sea Level Aquifer is also in danger of being contaminated, but by multiple factors. The first factor is the same as the Perched Aquifer, chemicals from fertilizers and pesticides. In the same way that the chemicals seep through to get to the Perched Aquifer, the Mean Sea Level Aquifer has chemicals dripping into it through the rock layers above. It has been estimated that it can take up to 40 years for the farming chemicals to filter through the rock layers and into the aquifers, which means that the chemicals that are reaching the aquifers now, are from the 1970s. Usage of chemicals and pesticides has only increased since that time, which would implicate that there are many more chemicals dripping through the rock and will infiltrate the aquifer in the near future.

As if this wasn’t concerning enough, another factor that plays a large role in the contamination of the Mean Sea Level Aquifer is the sea itself. The freshwater that sits above the dense, salty seawater is a lens, protected by the bottommost rock layer. Currently only the edges of the freshwater lens gets contaminated by the salt water, however as the freshwater is depleted, more and more freshwater is mixed with salt water, making the aquifer less and less usable for the Maltese without first going through the reverse osmosis plants, taking time and money.

There are numerous other opinions and questions that arise when discussing the Malta water situation. However, one detail has come up time and time again, something must be done. The MWA specifically is trying to spread awareness about the increasingly concerning situation. The educational system has also begun to put effort into changing this lack of awareness, by adding a new chapter to the teaching curriculum and teaching young children about water and Malta. Thus the process has begun, but its not enough. For people to simply be aware isn’t enough to solve the problem, action must be taken and taken quickly.

The future of Malta at this moment is cloudy. There is no way to confidently predict what will happen when. So whether Malta will be able to begin saving its aquifers and using its own water or whether the reverse osmosis plants will be run at full power and glass bottles of water will be continually shipped from Italy, is uncertain. At the rate that Malta is going, it seems that rescued aquifers are a long shot and the reverse osmosis plants will need to increase production to serve the islands of Malta.

Water and Farming: Final Reflections

I have had the privilege to interview a number of the members of the Malta Water Society this week. From these interviews I gained a number of new perspectives about the water and farming situation here in Malta. Unfortunately, most Maltese people do not seem as aware or concerned about the severity of the water problem here in Malta as I and many water experts believe that they should be. Similarly, most people do not seem to be aware that the current water issues are making hardships for farmers.

The main issue at the moment is water quality in the main aquifer. As mentioned in my last post, the main aquifer is a large lens of freshwater that is perched just above sea level. High extraction rates have reduced the lens of water to the point where some wells are drawing brackish water. Obviously, salt and plants do not mix well. This is becoming an increasingly severe problem for farmers who rely on the lower aquifer for fresh water. The question at the moment seems to be how long it will take for the fresh water lens to collapse to the point where it is unusable, and then how long it will take for the lens to recover. Even if extraction were stopped today, members of the Malta Water Association think that it will take a number of years for the lens to recover.

The need for the aquifer to replenish itself brings up the topic of alternative sources of water. The most plentiful alternative at this point is recycled sewage water, or gray water. Three sewage water treatment plants have already been built on Malta, but the water from them is not being utilized. The water could be either further refined and reintroduced into the main water system, or piped out separately to farms. Unfortunately, while the plans exist to utilize this gray water for farming, the funding is not yet available.

In the event that water from boreholes becomes too salty to use and farmers are required to use water from a central system they would probably need to pay for it. Despite a probable discount for water used on agriculture, it would be important for farmers to consider the economics of the crops that they grew. As Dr. Knox pointed out, certain crops take more water, and other crops take less water. For Malta, it would be best for farmers to choose crops that take the least water to grow and leave the other crops to be grown abroad and imported. After all, some areas of the world have much more rain water than Malta. These are places that are ideal for growing water intensive crops without environmental impact.

Because so few people recognize the water problem on Malta it will be difficult to prevent the degradation of the central aquifer. As a result, at some point in the future, farmers may be required to take water from a central system which will limit the types of crops they can grow economically.


One more issue that I found out about is the entrance of nitrates into the lower aquifer. Nitrates can come from both sewer water and fertilizers. Unfortunately, the water in the aquifer is already unfit for human consumption because of these nitrates. This means that continued use of chemical fertilizers could further damage the lower aquifer. This is an unsustainable and unwise course of action. Instead, organic farming methods could be used, which avoid the use of chemical fertilizers.

As mentioned in prior posts, the government has not heavily promoted organic farming to either the population or the farmers. Standard consumers do not look for the organic label, and the majority of farmers have not bothered to become organically certified. Organic farming, however, should be encouraged to reduce the amount of contamination in the lower aquifer, among other reasons.


Based upon the information I collected this week, I think that water is going to be an increasingly difficult issue for farmers. Those who rely on water from the central aquifer and not from cisterns might need to make some adjustments to keep their farms economical. It will also be important for all farmers to consider using organic fertilizers to reduce the contamination of the central aquifer. I doubt that Maltese farming will die out, but I do think adjustments should be made to compensate for the current state of the environment.


I would like to thank Keith Buhagiar, Dr. Gorden Knox, Julian Mamo, and Philip Grech for taking the time to talk to me about water and farming this week.