page_title: Water supply and sanitation in Gibraltar
section_title: Under British rule
hierarchical_section_title: Water supply and sanitation in Gibraltar / Under British rule
caption_attribution_description: English: Old fountain which used to provide water from an ancient aqueduct in en:Gibraltar.
context_page_description: Water supply and sanitation in Gibraltar have been major concerns for its inhabitants throughout its history, from medieval times to the present day. The climate of Gibraltar is a mild Mediterranean one with warm dry summers and cool wet winters. Since daily records of rainfall began in 1790, annual rainfall has averaged a mean of 838 millimetres with the highest volumes in December and the lowest in July. However, most of Gibraltar's small land area is occupied by the Rock of Gibraltar, a limestone outcrop that is riddled with caves and crevices. There are no rivers, streams, or large bodies of water on the peninsula, which is connected to Spain via a narrow sandy isthmus.
  Gibraltar's water supply was formerly provided by a combination of an aqueduct, wells, and the use of cisterns, barrels and earthenware pots to capture rainwater. This became increasingly inadequate as Gibraltar's population grew in the 18th and 19th centuries; the settlement was a breeding ground for lethal diseases such as cholera and yellow fever, which killed thousands of its inhabitants and members of the British garrison in repeated outbreaks.
context_section_description: The Spanish water infrastructure continued to be used by the British well after the capture of Gibraltar in 1704. As late as 1863, there was not a single water pipe in the town apart from the Spanish aqueduct. The main source of drinking water, other than the aqueduct, was rainwater that had been collected during the winter. The British military relied on large cisterns mounted on the roofs of buildings to gather rainwater, while ordinary Gibraltarians used barrels and large earthenware pots called tinajas. At the time, most Gibraltarians lived in two- or three-storey buildings with an interior courtyard, called patios, which were occupied by two or three families. They were generally owned either by absentee landlords or the British government, neither of which had much interest in building private cisterns. The courtyards of the patios were thus crowded with barrels and tinajas which supplied the occupants' water during the summer drought. If they ran out, the only other source of water was from pedlars who brought barrels of water in from Spain, charging high prices for the privilege. This encouraged many people to recycle their water as much as possible, reusing the same water for different purposes.
  Gibraltar's chronic shortage of water had significant negative consequences for all the inhabitants, civilian and military alike. The military took priority but made no effort to ration or apportion it. The British Army and the Royal Navy effectively competed for the same limited supply. Both required large volumes of water, but the arrival of a fleet could result in Gibraltar's supplies of water and food being consumed suddenly with no provision left over for others who might need it. The rapid growth of Gibraltar's population during the 18th and 19th centuries added to the pressure on the territory's water supply. There was a fivefold increase in numbers between 1784 and 1800, with a further tripling to 16,800 inhabitants by 1814. The old Spanish water supply and rainwater catchments in the town had been manageable for a combined military and civilian population of up to about 3,000 people, but above that level the impact of water shortages became increasingly severe.
  The most serious impact was, perhaps not surprisingly, on the state of public health in the territory. The large numbers of water containers standing open across Gibraltar provided an ideal breeding habitat for mosquitoes. Ships carrying cargoes from Africa brought with them the tropical disease yellow fever, which is spread by female mosquitoes carrying the infection. From 1804, Gibraltar suffered five outbreaks of yellow fever; in the first and most devastating, the death toll amounted to 5,733 people out of a total of around 18,000, representing 32 per cent of the population.
  The second epidemic coincided with the arrival in 1814 of General Sir George Don as the new Governor of Gibraltar. He ordered that all new buildings were to have a cistern, and instructed that existing cisterns were to be covered. The latter measure would have helped somewhat with the mosquito problem though this could not have been Don's intention, as the relationship between mosquitoes and yellow fever was not yet known – the outbreaks of the disease had been blamed on "miasma" or foul air emanating from the piles of rotting refuse that could be found all over Gibraltar.
  A new sewage system was built on Don's orders in 1815, but this was so poorly designed that it actually worsened Gibraltar's sanitary problems. It had no ability to be flushed and was insufficiently inclined to keep the sewage flowing out to the bay. As a result, the system merely brought sewage down from the upper part of the town to the lower part, where it piled up under the main streets. The sewage remained there until the winter rains dislodged it and flushed it into the bay. Because the outfalls were so short, however, the sewage simply washed back up onto the shoreline and resulted in the seafront being coated in a slick of effluent.
  Apart from mosquitoes, Gibraltar's cisterns had other major hygiene prob
caption: A former Spanish fountain with gargoyles in Gibraltar, used from 1684 to 1962
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