There is no doubt about the importance of water for the development of a region. Water is a powerful transforming agent capable of revitalising the economy of areas which, due to the progress of desertification caused by climate change, are becoming more and more present in southern Europe.
The main particularity of this project is the use of treated wastewater as irrigation water, which makes the project a great challenge considering its size: 3.4 Mm3 /year.
The agricultural transformation company (SAT) Regadíos de Cancarix has a concession for the use of wastewater of 3.4 Mm3/year, which it was already utilising prior to the implementation of this project. However, the current volume of 1.5 Mm3/year that was actually used (it was limited by the designed WWTP) was insufficient to cover the demand in the area. Therefore, an additional supply was requested, for which the storage infrastructure would have to be enlarged.
The fact that this is treated wastewater has an important impact on the infrastructure. The water input of a WWTP is higher during the winter months and lower during the summer months, just the opposite of the water requirement of the crops.
In order to avoid overfilling when there is a surplus and to guarantee the supply during the drier months, it is necessary to design ponds with a larger capacity.
- Characteristics of the reservoir:
- Capacity: 880,000m3
- Waterproofed surface area: 115,000 m2
- Total area affected: 12.26 Ha.
- Depth: 11.5m
The Armando Álvarez Group supplied the entire package of geosynthetics for the waterproofing of the pond. In particular, TexDelta supplied the GEOPROTEC SIS non-woven geotextile for its use as protection layer for the ALVATECH 5002 high density polyethylene geomembrane used as liner.
Thanks to the use of the GEOPROTEC SIS geotextile, the service life of the waterproofing system is improved by avoiding the appearance of weakness areas in the membrane caused by any possible imperfection in the subgrade.
On March 31st 2023, the project was officially launched by the Regional Minister of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development of Castilla-La Mancha, which will guarantee the viability of the crops in the area for the next few decades.
