17.04.2024

30 new restrictive measures due to the ongoing drought in the Pyrenees

A three-year drought in the French eastern Pyrenees is forcing the region to take further action to conserve water.

Tour operators have signed a charter containing around 30 measures aimed at reducing water consumption, including a ban on ice buckets, reports Euronews.

New hotels built over the next six years will be designed to conserve and reuse water. One of the changes will be that fewer rooms will have bathtubs.

Inevitable adaptation

Brice Sanac, president of the Union of Hospitality and Industry of the Eastern Pyrenees, said that hotel owners and operators have accepted the need to adapt to the conditions.

New hotels under construction and to be built by 2030 will install systems to reclaim water from showers for toilet use. The toilets will no longer function with potable water,” he said.

Xavier Maho, a hotel owner, said the water used to maintain the pool would be reused.

When we cleaned the filter, the water went straight into the rainwater system. From tomorrow it will be collected in a tank in the apparatus room and we will use it both for the plants and for cleaning the pool," he explained.

Last year, a drought was declared in the coastal region of the Eastern Pyrenees of France. Washing cars, watering gardens and filling swimming pools were banned to conserve drinking water supplies.

One of the main rivers, Agli, has practically dried up for more than a year.

The French weather bureau said the drought was the most severe since records were kept in 1959.