Recursos y usos del agua en Tenerife y Gran Canaria.

Abstract

The Canary lslands have a in front of the Atlantic coast of the Sabara, total land surface is 7.560 km2. They are fully volcanic in origin, mostly of aubaerial deposita of lavas ans pyroclastic. Also old submarine lavas autcrop in some islands constituting a basament that probably underlies most of the islands. Young volcanic materials may be highly permeable. Older formations are generally porly pervioua, but contain discontinui ties of several kinds that allow the movement of around water even at depths of many humdred of metres. Surface runoff is higly variable. In sorne areas it is practically nil whilst in others stornms can originate intense, fast floods great quantities of sedimenta and downcut deep canyous and gullies.

The distinct hydric balances and unequal water reserves particularly in Gran Canaria and Tenerife Islands are discussed on the basic of the SPÁ-15 and MAC-21 reports as well as some more detailed studies.

The conclusions of different authors and reporta are quantitatively compared as to the storage estimatea and the difficulty of calculating this parameter for these volcanic islands. Lastly, the amount of feasible exploitation of the island aquifers is considered and evaluated.