Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Posted by : John Ross on May 16, 2008 - 11:11 AM environment

The drought in short: first, there is one; it will get worse; it won't be a terrible disaster; it will be very uncomfortable in certain ways and for some people, though; and the prospects for the future are alarming but not so much as to cry doomwatch. The situation is particularly severe in Catalonia, especially Barcelona, which has barely enough reserves to get it through the summer and is actually shipping water in by tanker, which I think must be a first in Europe (do let me know if I'm wrong, that's what the comments box is for). The picture, by the way, is of Sant Roma church near Barcelona which is currently a tourist attraction because it is normally under water, at the bottom of a reservoir. Read more of this very dry story.

Barcelona really needs the water being shipped in: its fountains and beach showers have been turned off, hosepipe bans applied, and swimming pools emptied. Tankers are going to shuttle water into the city from three places: Tarragona, Marseilles and the Provence Canal. Six tankers will run these routes, making 189 trips in the next three months, an operation which will cost 53 million euros, reports El País.

The drought in Spain is not just due to a lack of rainfall this year but to a series of dry years. Spain's reservoirs are about 56% full overall as opposed to 65% this time last year, the real problem being that, for the purposes of water storage, Spanish summers are rain-free, and no really helpful rainfall is expected until October, over four months away.

The problem is not evenly distributed. Madrid's reservoirs, 72% full, are expected to see it through to this winter comfortably, for example, and beyond if necessary, but the reservoirs of neighbouring Guadalajara are only 16% full. In general, the north, west and north-west of the country has plenty of water, while the south, east and north-east is suffering acute drought. So Catalonia, Andalusia, the Valencia Region and Murcia are the areas affected. Although Extremadura in the west of Spain is not in a difficult position, the difference between Cáceres in the north (70%) and Badajoz in the south (57%) clearly shows the north-south divide.

For hydrological purposes, Spain is not divided into provinces but into thirteen cuencas, the largest of which in terms of water stored are the Tagus, the Guadiana, the Duero, the Ebro and the Guadalquivir. Significantly, especially in terms of the future, the cuencas are politically fought over with acrimony, and increasingly so. The Ebro, for example, not only supplies both Aragón and Tarragona, in the south of Catalonia, but is expected to have suffiicient capacity for some to be tapped off to supply farmers in the Valencia Region and Murcia, and more is demanded by Barcelona. A trasvase to Barcelona is planned, this being a run-off of huge amount of water, normally carried out via a kind of canal. In this case, though, an ingenious pipeline is being planned, doubly ingenious as it will occupy the centre of the Mediterranean Highway from Tarragona to Barcelona, so avoiding any need for excavation. The political sidestepping involved is almost as clever, as Environment Minister Elena Espinosa claims that the run-off is not a run-off at all, as the water will be found by improving the network supplying Tarragona's irrigated farmland, so no deficit will be created. The truth is that she is obliged to make this defence for three reasons: the droves of water-thirsty regional groups which want to see Ebro water diverted in their direction, the accusation of hypocrisy from the otherwise pro-trasvase PP in opposition, and the fact that one of the Socialist party's recent electoral promises was that no trasvase from the Ebro would be made.

Entertainingly, it has been revealed that a farmers' association in Villena, a town in Alicante with farmland irrigated by water run off from the Júcar basin and which is demanding Ebro water, has reached an agreement with Swiss multinational Danone. The association intends to sell it water for bottling.

I have read in the Guardian that when reservoir levels fall below 15%, the water is not considered fit for drinking. Ironically, one of the sources of water considered to solve Barcelona's problems was a desalination plant in Carboneras in the province of Almeria, which has a near-desert climate and where the reservoirs are down to 5% of capacity. The desalination plant, however, produces a surplus even though it is only running at a fraction of its capacity, because its remote location means there is no centre of population nearby large enough to take all the water it can produce.

More information:
Hispagua, the Spanish Water Information System
Embalses.net, Spanish reservoirs

Update - June 1st, 2008

It looks as if the rain in the last couple of weeks has filled the reservoirs to over 70% of capacity, which takes the edge off the crisis. It doesn't mean it has gone away, though.