Governing desalination in Spain and Israel (1990–2020): lessons on institutional coherence and infrastructure performance

This article compares Spain and Israel (1990–2020) to explain why similar legal reforms and investments in seawater desalination yielded divergent outcomes. Israel consolidated a centrally coordinated model with near cost-recovery and broad uptake, whereas Spain’s installed capacity has experienced lower and more uneven utilization alongside recurrent debate. Using a most-similar systems design, the analysis explores four policy dimensions: tariff design, social acceptance, governance arrangements and legal coordination. Findings show that durable performance depends less on structural pressures than on coherent tariffs, availability-based contracts, integrated network operations and sustained outreach, with post-2020 developments discussed qualitatively to assess external validity.