A European Union-funded study on Anguilla’s groundwater has identified the accumulation of salt as the biggest threat to its sustainable use. Haskoning, a consulting engineering company from the Netherlands commissioned to conduct the research, revealed its latest findings in a press release on 12 August.
It said that modelling suggests that excess water extraction is a major cause of rising salt levels in aquifers – the underground layers of rock, sand or gravel that hold groundwater. This is worsened by private desalination plants putting their highly concentrated waste salt water back into the ground, it said. Meanwhile, researchers noted that rising sea levels caused by climate change appear to have only a limited impact.
