More dependent on the evolution of the tourist season, the water parks are not worried about the drought. For years, these establishments have been betting on a sustainable economy and have devised them to “use less water”, explains Josep Maria Cama, president of the Association of Aquatic Parks of Catalonia. When the attractions are designed, the project includes the detection of groundwater wells to match the facilities, “except those used for consumption, hospitality and toilets”.
“We are not big consumers of water, even if it seems the opposite”, says Cama. The consumption of a leisure complex with water attractions, such as Illa Fantasia, in Vilassar de Dalt (Maresme), which brings together a more familiar public from the metropolitan area, “spends less than a middle-class hotel” that consumes around 300 liters per person per day. “We quite a bit less, half”, he says.
The campaign starts in June with school activities. Until the fourth week of July, the houses and camps alternate with the first tourists. “But the tough campaign starts now, in July.”
The aquatic complex of Vilassar de Dalt could be taken as an example of the evolution of recreational parks with water. They practically only fill the pools at the beginning of the season and since then the water circulates in closed circuits, constantly passing through a filter system and undergoing a purification process that returns it to the attractions. In fact, explains Cama, “the water we use to clean the filters is not thrown away, we reuse it for sanitary purposes”.
Illa Fantasia, with a capacity for 8,000 people, is a clear example of energy optimization. “We are a very family-friendly park, 70% of the customers come from the Barcelona metropolitan area,” emphasizes Cama, who also owns Waterworld and Aqua Diver, in Platja d’Aro. “We opened 39 years ago and we are constantly innovating”, both in terms of sustainability and offering renewed attractions adapted to trends.
On the Costa Brava, the water parks of Waterworld, in Lloret de Mar, and Aquadiver, in Platja d’Aro, which last year had more than 330,000 visitors, began in 2019 to eliminate the flower beds, which required a lot of water, and the ornamental grass, which is not part of the visitor rest areas. The areas of grass that visitors cannot step on have gradually been replaced by pavement or have stopped being watered. With these two actions and the progressive replacement of sprinkler and micro-sprinkler irrigation areas with a drip irrigation system, they have achieved a 90% water saving in garden areas, which is the part of the park that uses the most water. 38% of the water used comes from the two parks’ own wells. This is the one that is mostly used for watering the lawn. The rest comes from the network.
The director of the two facilities claims that Waterworld went from consuming 77,000 cubic meters a year in 2019 to 57,000 last season.
“The irrigation of the garden areas is what consumes the most water”, explains the director of the two parks, Julià López-Arenas. The attractions work with a closed circuit, so that almost the same amount of water is moved throughout the season, which in this type of facility is rather short.
Only 5% of the water consumed is renewed as a result of evaporation or that which is caught in the bathing suits of users every time they slide through the attractions. “The health regulations oblige to renew 5% of the water so that it is healthy”, he explains.
Beyond these actions, during this campaign the Aquadiver water park has modified one of the attractions in order to use less liquid and at the same time increase safety. The park has reduced the water in one of the pools by two-thirds, so that from 750,000 liters of stored water it has gone to 225,000 liters. At the same time, it has reduced its depth, which has gone from 180 centimeters to 60 centimeters.
López-Arenas has his sights set on the expansion of Waterworld, which will have new attractions in the 2024 and 2025 seasons. One of the measures is to find a system that makes it possible to take advantage of the cleaning water from the filters and prevent it from ending up in the sewer and being used for the discharge of toilet cisterns.
At the Caribe Aquatic Park in Port Aventura, on the Costa Daurada, with 50,000 square meters and two kilometers of slides, 51,236 cubic meters of “recreational and bathing water” were consumed last year, according to data from Port Aventura World. The resort’s water park, with almost 330,000 visitors in 2019, before the pandemic, highlights that 30% of the water it consumes globally, including hotels and amusement parks, such as the Caribe Aquatic Park, is regenerated water.
In addition, when the season ends at the water park, the water from the pools is poured into the Mediterranean lake and is treated and reused for bathing the following season, they add from Port Aventura World. The system must supply water to a total of 14 attractions, waterfalls and also huge swimming pools where thousands of people swim in the summer. “Port Aventura World was already designed under environmental criteria with a closed water circuit thanks to the construction of a tertiary system”, remember the same sources. It is not, therefore, a new situation now derived from the historic drought. “The water park is designed so that there is no loss of water in the attractions, so that the swell or the water outlets never cause water to spill outside the attraction or the pool”, they exemplify. There are no grass areas, ornamental or of any kind – they are artificial grass.
According to the Catalan Water Agency (ACA), all water parks in Catalonia consume, on average, between 0.8 and 0.9 cubic hectometres of water annually. A figure that is equivalent to around 800,000 or 900,000 million litres. The figure is slightly less than what 7.5 million tourists consume in just one day, which is one cubic hectometre.
The veteran promoter of water parks, Josep Maria Cama, predicts that “the season will be one of the best”, because leisure is now one of the priorities of families and “people want to go out” and forget about the economic recession by spending very pleasant days. “Water parks sell sensations and we continue to offer them.”
