ABSTRACT
The water resources of Santa Cruz Island, a tourist hub of the Galapagos Archipelago, are severely threatened by growth in the local population and the number of tourists visiting the island. The lack of freshwater resources on Santa Cruz has been a problem for the local population for a number of years. Since there are no permanent sources of freshwater on the island, the municipality is only able to supply (untreated) brackish water, which is pumped from crevices of a basal aquifer. Santa Cruz continues to deal with the effects of a rapidly increasing tourist industry, like other islands around the world. This chapter shows that spillage of water from household storage tanks accounts for a significant amount of water that is wasted by the population. It suggests that storage facilities on household premises are not necessarily contributing to the provision of water, but are instead complicating the situation as individual storage tanks.
