Youths’ economic and regulatory traits in water resources management as a precursor for good water governance

Abstract

Water management and water scarcity can take different meanings in different contexts with major variations in focus such as ensuring access to safe water in developing countries to abstracting water only within sustainable levels in industrialised nations. The Maltese Islands are a small group of islands having an overall area of 316km2 and a population density of 1309 persons/km2. Today, groundwater resources which once served our ancestors, are no longer sufficient to support Malta’s resident and visiting population. Of the total water produced, 43.85% (NSO, 2012) is today derived from groundwater, a proportion which has been on the decline throughout the past years. The rest is provided by more energy intensive desalination technology. Moreover, from information given in the Maltese Parliament in 2009, the annual sustainable yield from groundwater is estimated at 23 million cubic metres and which is currently being exceeded by 10 million cubic metres annually. From an environmental perspective, groundwater can be considered to be the only source of renewable water on the Maltese islands. Statistics show that for the year 2008, the groundwater exploitation rate.