The water production of the island of Tenerife currently reaches 230 hm³, adding the different sources of generation, such as groundwater and runoff, desalinated water and purified water prepared for reuse, according to the Council data Insular of Waters of the island. The waters lit in the subsoil by the conventional procedures of obtaining, as they have been the wells and the galleries, suppose the 84 percent of the total of the hydric resources available and have been traditionally managed by private agents, by means of concessions or administrative authorizations for a maximum period of 75 years, although said resource belongs by its legal nature to the public domain, as established by the National Water Law.
In the current context of island development, the sector that consumes the most water continues to be agriculture, with 40 percent of the total, although its demand has decreased considerably as a result of the reduction of the cultivated area and the installation of irrigation systems water economizers. It follows the saga urban consumption with 38.9 percent, because of the expansion of urbanization and increased consumption habits among the island population; and tourist and recreational consumption reach 17.6 percent, which if we add it to the urban, it exceeds 56.5 percent. This data is the reflection of one of the great changes experienced by Tenerife, as is the transformation of this into a residential island.
One of the hypotheses held in this work in relation to water consumption on the island of Tenerife is that the introduction of seawater desalination to cover part of the demand from urban and tourism areas has not only improved the overall quality of the resource, but has reduced the pressure of conventional exploitation on aquifers, which currently tend to recharge, although the energy cost of such technology is high and this would require the introduction of renewable energy sources to make their use more sustainable from the economic and environmental point of view. Therefore, the urban growth and tourist development of the Canary Islands have contributed to its expansion and to modify the exploitation conditions of the aquifers. The analysis of these processes and the verification of the hypotheses will be carried out through the use of primary data, making use of different statistical procedures and geographic information systems to highlight their spatial correlations.
In relation to the management of water resources in tourist areas, the so-called Regional System of Desalination, Treatment and Reuse of Adeje-Arona, included in the Insular Hydrological Plan, is a model of integral management of water resources that some consider " model " for the excellent socioeconomic and environmental results obtained for the urban space made up of the southern municipalities of Adeje and Arona, which are considered the jewel of the tourist crown of Tenerife, because it concentrates the largest accommodation offer on the island and its facilities present a high business profitability. But this system is also a paradigmatic example of the so-called artificial water cycle, resulting from the action of man over nature, due to the use of unconventional resources, such as the desalination of seawater and the reuse of purified wastewater, for that a significant amount of energy is used, which makes it unsustainable.

Keywords: tourism consumption, urbanization, desalination, purification and reuse