The Plenary of the City Council agrees to include Estepona in the application for European funds to improve the efficiency of the urban water cycle.

The actions within this Sustainable and Digital Management of Water Bodies Project (GOTTAM) are quantified at two million euros and will be co-financed by the City Council with more than 400,000 euros. They may be executed during the years 2024, 2025 and 2026.

The Plenary of the City Council of Estepona has agreed today to authorize the concessionaire of water service in Estepona, Hidralia, to submit the grant application for European funds to the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge for the implementation of the Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation (PERTE Costa del Sol) in the field of integrated water cycle.

Among the objectives to be achieved with this grant is to improve the knowledge of water uses to consolidate an integrated management of water resources, minimizing the impact of climate change. In addition, measures will be implemented to increase transparency in water management and the information available to public administrations, users and consumers in general, so as to establish the basis for raising public awareness of the responsible and sustainable use of water.

The subsidy will also contribute to the fulfillment of the environmental objectives established in the National Hydrological Plan and to the generation of highly qualified technical employment, investing in innovation and technology.

The water service concessionaire considers that the actions to be carried out will contribute to highlighting the importance of groundwater in the water resilience of the territory and of managed aquifer recharge techniques.

Likewise, during the execution of the different actions, a series of digital tools will be implemented (leakage management, remote reading, monitoring of water bodies and hydrological plans, territorial sewerage management, optimized management of aquifer recharge systems…) highly replicable and scalable in other geographical, hydrological and climatic contexts. All these tools will be connected to a single Datalake or unified database, in order to provide secure and valuable information to public administrations and citizens.

Other planned actions include the digitalization of the sewage and sanitation system to improve the quality of water entering the treatment plants, the installation of photovoltaic panels in drinking water tanks and pumping stations, the creation of an advanced well management platform and satellite modeling to identify the presence of water in the main surface bodies of water.

The actions within this Project of Sustainable and Digital Management of Water Bodies (GOTTAM) approved by the Plenary of the Corporation, are quantified at two million euros and will be co-financed by the City Council with more than 400,000 euros. They may be executed during the years 2024, 2025 and 2026. The City Council will pay this amount through the improvement canon to finance infrastructure works for the drinking water supply and distribution service.