Seven million people already suffer water restrictions of some kind in Spain due to the drought in the country. The most affected areas are Andalusia and Catalonia, where more than six thousand municipalities have had to adopt measures to reduce citizens’ water consumption.
“There are already seven million people who suffer some type of limitation in the use of water, from night cuts, where they really no longer have water at home, or other types of limitations, for example, that there is no water in the showers in the beaches, or who cannot use the water for irrigation”, explains Júlio Barea, head of Greenpeace.
In the case of Catalonia, a state of alarm was even declared for the first time in history. At the base of the problem is the lack of rain during the year, which has made water reserves in Spain less than desirable. “In August, the water level in the dams in Spain is barely at 42% of their capacity, 20 points below the average for the last ten years,” explains Barea.
In a recently published report, the environmental organization warns that, if measures are not taken, Spain will be affected by periods of drought ten times worse than the current ones. Dry spells and heat, the organization notes, will reduce the availability of fresh water and pose a threat to human activities.
However, not only drought and climate change contribute to this water scarcity, but also the mismanagement of water resources.
Municipalities take measures
Prohibition of watering public and private green spaces, limitations on the use of water in agricultural, industrial and recreational activities and even total cuts in the supply: several Spanish municipalities are taking drastic measures to deal with the drought that the country is experiencing.
“We have gone from the typical agriculture and livestock that we all know, traditional, family, local, to large agro-industries that are using a large amount of water resources, 80% of water consumption is done in this industrial agriculture,” says Barea.
In addition, the official also denounces the “more than four million hectares of legal irrigated crops” that exist in Spain, which drastically affect water consumption. “We are consuming more water than we can replace,” he warns.
For this reason, the organization asks the governments of the different autonomous communities to take measures to begin to reverse the situation. “The first thing we have to do is reduce and adapt this agriculture and livestock that we have because 80% of the water is consumed there, that’s where the problem lies,” he insists.
“So we still have a situation of illegal consumption: there are more than a million illegal water wells, according to data from the Ministry of the Environment, which each year are estimated to consume the water that a population of 118 million people would consume. much more than the Spanish and Portuguese population combined, “he denounces. “This kind of thing has to stop.”
The year 2023 is being the driest of the last forty years. Since the beginning of the year it has rained 74% less than average. If the forecasts are confirmed, by the end of September the weather conditions are not expected to change in such a way that the situation will be reversed.
Source: TSF
