This summer, the city of Argelès-sur-Mer, France, took out its 10 beach showers to preserve water resources
©S.Ferrer
This French municipality never stopped working towards improving its footprint since it first received the Blue Flag award in 1986. A great example of a municipality dedicated to the building of a more sustainable tourism coastal industry.
The municipality’s eco-friendly initiative has permitted to replace 10 beach showers by taps. In this way, almost 8 million of drinking water have been saved*! Argelès-sur-Mer took this decision in order to save water, a natural resource which is rarefying and had to be controlled during the country’s summer heatwave. Nevertheless, beyond this idea of reducing the water consumption on the beaches, this decision has also been made to get the bad uses over with.
©S.Ferrer
This is not the only measure taken by the municipality to reduce water consumption and preserve natural resources. Since 2006, Argelès-sur-Mer and another French municipality have been working on the leak resorption of their drinking water distribution system. The city also opted for a sustainable management of its green spaces, creating spaces requiring a low water consumption. Moreover, rainwater is re-used for the one of the park’s fountains and the new stadium’s synthetic grass can be managed without water or pesticides.
Blue Flag criterion aims to reduce water consumption on its awarded sites. That is why we encourage municipalities to opt for an alternative system to store and use rainwater in order to limit the use of fresh water for watering. Argelès-sur-Mer is a good example of Blue Flag criterion’s implementation.
*Water consumption between June, 1rst, 2018 and September, 28th, 2018.