An approximate method for estimating water consumption according to tourist land use patterns: evidence from Gandía municipality (Spain)

Abstract

This paper is a partial result of the research project, Strategies for Sustainable Regeneration in Tourism Settlements on the Mediterranean Coast (ERAM) of the 2011 National Research Plan of Spain. The research focuses on one of the 68 coastal towns of the Valencian Community Region (CV) representing more than 12.5% of the GDP. Although tourism is a fundamental economic strategy for many coastal cities, it is one of the main drivers of global environmental change and affects scarce water resources, including those in southern Spain. This paper concerns a demonstration of the validity of an approximate method to estimate indoor–outdoor water consumption according to tourist land use patterns, and to provide quantitative information on water consumption in gardens and swimming pools as water-related leisure structures. The analysis combines water consumption statistics with population census and “Housing 2011”, and uses geo-data based on the SIOSE 2011 project, the CV05 cartography from the Valencian Cartographic Institute and the Spanish homeownership registry. The results show the different tourist consumption due to land-use patterns and the validity of a method to approximate complete