On a fiery hot day in late June, tourists filled the cafes and hotel rooms along Spain’s Mediterranean coast, including in Torrevieja, a small city of tightly stacked apartment blocks running along a curved beach. The seasonal population surge in this dry, sun-baked region might strain water resources were it not for a set of buildings overlooking a pink-tinged lagoon nearby. These low-slung structures house a vast network of pipes, pumps and tanks in a plant that performs a kind of alchemy crucial to the economy of this part of Spain: drawing huge volumes of water from the sea, removing the salt and creating more than 60 million gallons of fresh water a day. Acciona, a Spanish company that built the plant, says the facility can supply water for 1.6 million people through the process known as desalination. For much of the year, though, the output is largely used to nurture oranges, lemons and other crops for consumers in Northern Europe.

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Locations: Torrevieja, Spain, Spanish, Northern Europe