Mitigation Options for Future Water Scarcity: A Case Study in Santa Cruz Island (Galapagos Archipelago)

Santa Cruz Island (Galapagos Archipelago), like many other tourist islands, is currently experiencing an exponential increase in tourism and local population growth, jeopardizing current and future water supply. An accurate assessment of the future water supply/demand balance is crucial to capital investment for water infrastructure. This paper aims to present five intervention strategies, which are suggested to solve the future water crisis. The strategies combined include environmentally sustainable options such as rainwater harvesting, greywater recycling and water demand management, as well as desalination. These strategies were evaluated under four population growth scenarios (very fast, fast, moderate and slow growths) by using several Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) including water demand, leakage levels, total costs, energy consumption, rainwater delivered and greywater recycled. Moreover, it also aims to develop a methodology for similar islands, using the WaterMet2 modelling approach, a tool for integrated of sustainable-based performance of urban water systems. The results obtained show that by 2044 only a small portion of the future water demand can be covered assuming business as usual. Therefore, desalination seems to be the most viable option in order to mitigate the lack of water at the end of the planning period considering the growth trends. However, strategies comprising more environmentally friendly alternatives may be sufficient, but only under slow population growth scenarios.