Profit in Every Drop – Environment and Planning Journalism
Daiva Repečkaitė, Julian Bonnici, Kyriakos Pieridis, Turgut Denizgil, Diogo Augusto, Christodoulos Mavroudis and Andreas Cosma investigated who profits from groundwater in Malta, Cyprus and Portugal, three of the EU’s most water-scarce member states. The investigation was published by Amphora Media (Malta) and the Cyprus Investigative Reporting Network (CIReN). On 13 November 2025, Journalismfund Europe awarded the project a grant of €15,440 from its Environmental Investigative Journalism grant programme.
Using FOI requests and registry data, the journalists identified the largest commercial water users. In Malta, the biggest groundwater user is a group of companies that also benefits from government tenders and EU agricultural subsidies. The government’s own landscaping contractor comes second. In Cyprus, just 1.4% of recorded abstraction points account for nearly 68% of the total permitted volume. In Portugal, agriculture, tourism and golf resorts rely largely on self-extracted groundwater that authorities barely monitor. As a result, the cost of drought falls on public finances. The jury described it as “a wide-ranging investigation that was deeply researched and contributes to the public understanding of environmental issues”.
Mediterranean Low Cost – Business Journalism
Futura D’Aprile, Julian Bonnici, Daiva Repečkaitė, Giovanni Culmone, Matteo Garavoglia, Maurizio Franco and Marco Mastrandrea examined the effects of touristification and gentrification on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, in Malta, Istanbul, Marrakech and Tunis. The investigation was published by Amphora Media (Malta) and Centro di Giornalismo Permanente (Rome). On 30 April 2025, Journalismfund Europe awarded the project a CBLocal grant of €22,710.
Foreign investment funds, new low-cost flight routes and short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb are driving up housing prices in all four places and pushing long-time residents out. In Malta, the short-let market is dominated by a handful of property management companies, and in some locations nearly half of active short lets have no proper licence. The jury commended the entry for “its detailed and wide-ranging investigation and clear communication”.
The Maltese strand of the investigation also had concrete impact. The team’s data sets were raised in a Parliamentary Standing Committee, and one month after publication the government announced reform proposals. In April 2026, it approved the Tourism Accommodation Regulations, which came into force in June. Short-let operators must now display a sign at the property entrance showing their licence number and the name and number of a contact person available 24/7 to handle complaints.
Amphora Media won five awards in total this year. Bertrand Borg, Online Editor at Times of Malta, wrote that “in just a couple of years, they’ve taken in-depth, data-based journalism to heights Malta has never seen before”.
More info: igm.mt
