Water in Mallorca: wells, pools and dry summers

Where the island’s water comes from

Most of Mallorca’s drinking water has always come from underground aquifers, pumped from municipal wells or bought from private ones. In dry years those aquifers have been pushed hard, and in some places over-pumping has made the water saltier in summer. In the late 1990s supply was so tight that drinking water was shipped in from the mainland by tanker.

Since then the Balearic government has added desalination plants at Palma, Andratx and Alcúdia, linked by a pipeline across the island. The regional water agency, ABAQUA, sells this water to town halls, and buying it in winter as well as summer gives the aquifers a chance to recover. Not every municipality is connected, and each town hall, or the company it contracts, runs its own local network.

Mains, wells, cisterns and tankers

A house in a town or an urbanised estate is normally on the mains. Out in the country many houses are not connected, and their water comes from one or more of these:

Well (pou)

Draws groundwater from the plot. New wells, and new uses of up to 7,000 cubic metres a year, need an authorisation from the Balearic government’s Directorate General of Water Resources; larger volumes need a full concession.

Cistern (aljub)

A tank, often under the house or a terrace, that collects rainwater from the roofs. Many old country houses have one.

Tanker delivery

Drinking water brought by lorry and pumped into the cistern. In dry summers demand for deliveries rises sharply.

Wells are not a guarantee. In drought years the water table drops, and a well that works in winter can run low in August. Even on the mains, cuts happen: in February 2026 parts of Porto Cristo were left without water for days, and the supplier pointed out that many houses there had no tank of their own.

How the drought plan works

Since 2017 the Balearic Islands have had a special drought plan, approved by Decree 54/2017. The islands are split into demand units, seven of them in Mallorca: Palma-Alcúdia, Tramuntana Nord, Tramuntana Sud, Artà, Manacor-Felanitx, Migjorn and Es Pla. Each month the government checks aquifer levels and gives each unit a status: normal, pre-alert, alert or emergency.

The higher the level, the stronger the measures: awareness campaigns and cuts in use at first, then restrictions. In its report on March 2026, most of Mallorca was in pre-alert, parts of the Tramuntana were normal and the Es Pla unit, in the centre of the island, was in alert, the worst placed.

Pools and gardens

Restrictions on what you can do with mains water are set locally, by mayoral decree, and they vary from one town to the next. In summer 2025, for example, Sóller banned filling pools, watering gardens and washing cars with mains water for the first time in about 25 years. Esporles, Estellencs and Pollença also banned filling pools and watering, and other towns limited supply to certain days or hours.

In practice, when a ban is in force a pool cannot be filled or topped up from the tap, and a thirsty lawn may have to go without. A town’s record in recent summers is a fair guide to what to expect.

What to ask before you buy

• Is the house on the mains? If not, where does every litre come from?
• Is there a well, and is it authorised and registered with the water authority? Ask to see the paperwork.
• How big is the cistern, and when was it last cleaned and checked?
• Has the well or cistern ever run dry? How often have tankers been needed?
• Which drought demand unit is the house in, and has the town hall restricted water use in recent summers?
• How is the pool filled, and is there a cover to cut evaporation?