The mayor of Dénia, Rafa Carrió, spoke at the Spain Smart Water Summit 2026, held in Madrid, after being invited by Aqualia. During his participation, he presented the municipal roadmap to ensure the supply of drinking water in a context of urban expansion and climate variability.
Carrió was part of a panel dedicated to water management in the Mediterranean arc, alongside the mayor of Eivissa, Rafael Triguero; the director general of Water of the Murcia Region, José Sandoval Moreno; the water commissioner of the Júcar River Basin Authority, Cristina Sola; and the mayor of Torre Pacheco, Pedro Ángel Roca.
Growth conditioned by water resources
The mayor explained that Dénia's General Plan links the expansion of the municipality to the actual availability of water. "Our General Plan is based on a fundamental premise: Dénia must grow in accordance with the resources it has. Water conditions our present, but above all we must guarantee it thinking about the city we want to be in the future", he stated.
Along these lines, he raised the need to diversify supply sources, incorporating desalinated water as a complementary resource in the medium term. "Water for Dénia's future must anticipate the threats we face today. We need a diversified supply, with different resources available, that gives us full guarantees even in periods of greatest demand", he said.
Mixed management and digitalisation
Carrió highlighted collaboration with Aqualia, in force since 1992, as a key part of the water management model in the municipality. "The mixed company provides us with two essential things: direct communication and shared decision-making capacity. The town council and private partner analyse and jointly decide on issues that affect the service and, at the same time, this model allows us to offer transparency to citizens about how and why these decisions are made", he indicated.
He also noted that 100% of the municipality's water metres have remote reading, which allows for more accurate monitoring of consumption. "Digitalisation allows us to better understand what happens in the network, to be more efficient and to offer information practically in real time to the citizen. Having data helps us to anticipate, detect anomalies and make better decisions", he explained. Dénia currently exceeds 50,000 inhabitants, a figure that can surpass 200,000 in the summer months, and its network has around 500 kilometres of water supply and about 150 kilometres of sewerage. "We have made very great progress, but we cannot be satisfied. The best way to guarantee water for the future is to prevent today the problems that could appear tomorrow", Carrió concluded.
