Urban water demand in a mass-tourism destination: analysis of touristic water uses in Rimini (Italy)

Abstract:

In a densely touristed city, the concentration of non-residents and specific water-demanding touristic activities add considerable pressure on the available water supplies.

For coastal cities, often inherently affected by water scarcity conditions, such increase in demand is concentrated in the summer season, that is already the most critical period from the climatic point of view.

The touristic factor has not been adequately addressed in the urban water demand studies, so far, and it is often neglected also by the water utilities and the consumers: the European JPI SIMTWIST (SIMulating Tourism Water consumption with STakeholders) project is addressing this issue with a “stakeholder-centred” approach, where the behavior, and the perceptions, of the different water and tourism stakeholders’, and their inter-relationships, are studied in their social and economic context.

The present study contributes to the understanding and the quantification of the water consumption in touristic activities, in particular hotels and bathing establishments, for the city of Rimini, that is the biggest beach resort on the entire Adriatic Sea, with more than 16 million night-stays per year and with one the highest density of hotels and bedrooms in Europe. The study analyses the patterns of the water demand and supply over the years, identifying also the repercussions that the occurrence of hydrological water scarcity conditions has on the exploitation of the different surface and subsurface water sources. In addition, a characterization of the single consumers allows to identify which features and services offered by the hotels and bathing establishment have the largest influence on the water consumption patterns.