From Dr L. Gauci Baluci

Your article “Briny future for vulnerable Malta” quoting a BBC report on water supply in Malta states that “in the tourist season Malta’s population trebles” (TMIS, 8 April). Someone at the BBC needs to have a refresher course in basic mathematics.

Yearly tourist arrivals are three times the population but they visit our islands for only around a week. This means that on average, tourists increase our population by about 25,000 as you have to divide the tourist number of 1.2 million by around 52.

This is an average increase of six per cent, and not treble the population of 400,000, as the BBC claimed.

The BBC report you quote also says that the Kandja galleries are “ancient” and “centuries old”. These galleries are in fact only half a century old and started producing drinking water in the early 1960s.

Luisa Gauci Baluci