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The Canary Islands attract millions of visitors every year, many of them drawn by the promise of clean Atlantic waters and pristine beaches. A leading marine scientist is now warning that the reality beneath the surface is considerably less reassuring.

 

Ricardo Haroun, director of the ECOAQUA University Institute, has called for urgent action from the Canary Islands' regional government and island authorities, saying that deteriorating coastal water quality is no longer just an environmental concern. It is becoming a public health issue. "Declining coastal water quality not only affects biodiversity and the benefits provided by marine habitats," he said, "but can also have consequences for the health of bathers, both local residents and the millions of tourists who use the Canary Islands' beaches."

 

Haroun made his comments following the First Regional Meeting of the Scientific Councils of the Canary Islands' Biosphere Reserves, held in Puerto del Rosario, Fuerteventura. Scientists and environmental experts at the meeting identified the loss of marine biodiversity as one of the region's most pressing challenges, pointing specifically to what they described as ineffective wastewater management and the increasing discharge of concentrated brine produced by coastal desalination plants. Some of these discharges are authorised, Haroun noted, but others are not, and both are causing environmental damage when not properly managed.

 

One of the habitats taking the worst of it is the archipelago's seagrass meadows, known locally as sebadales. A significant proportion of these underwater meadows has disappeared over recent decades, first from wastewater pollution and more recently from increased brine discharges. These seagrass beds are not a minor concern: they serve as breeding and nursery grounds for many marine species, including the fish that underpin the islands' traditional fishing industry.

 

The warning comes against a backdrop of growing public unease following several recent beach closures across the archipelago linked to bacterial contamination.

 

Haroun is not simply raising alarms without solutions. He pointed to innovative technologies already available that could significantly reduce or even eliminate harmful marine discharges, while also creating new jobs in the blue economy. European funding and private investment, he said, are both available to help modernise wastewater treatment and desalination infrastructure. What is needed, in his view, is the political will to make it happen.