scale: desalination is used mainly for household and industrial con-sumption while just 2% or 3% is used for agriculture, according to the International Desalination Association (IDA). Spain is one of the excep-tions. With 765 plants, it’s the country with the fifth-highest installed capacity, some five million cubic meters per day, and 21% is used for crop irrigation. “This percentage is much higher, for example, in the Segura River Basin District, where 60.8% is used for agriculture,” says the Spanish Desalination and Reuse Association (AEDyR). DESALINATION PLANTS In fact, it’s in the triangle formed by Alicante, Murcia, and Almeria that EUROPE’S BIGGEST DESALINATION PLANT ACCIONA is a global leader in reverse osmosis desalination, a technology that produces 6.5 times fewer CO2 emissions than conventional systems. Located in Torrevieja, Alicante (pictured above), it was designed and built by ACCIONA, which also operates it for ACUAMED, the State Agency for Water from the Mediterranean Basin. Its capacity is roughly 240,000 cubic meters per day, with half used for agricultural irrigation and the other half for human consumption. If household demand drops, that extra share is added to the water for crop irrigation. Another two of the company’s desalination plants, in the city of Almeria and in Carboneras, also supply water for agriculture.