Catalonia suffers from an unprecedented drought and enters an exceptional phase It represents an extension of restrictions on agricultural, industrial and urban uses, while not affecting drinking water in water systems that feed 80% of the population.
The keys to the drought in Catalonia are:
Reservoirs are below minimum
The reservoirs of the inland basins managed by the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) stand at 28%.very close to the indicative 25% threshold at which a state of emergency was declared.
Sau reservoir, which is the second highest capacity reservoir of the Catalonia inland basins, 14.62% (was 48% a year ago); It is such a low level that it forced a transfer to the largest reservoir, Susqueda, with 36.81%.
This is done to prevent the sludge from the bottom of the Sau reservoir from mixing with the last remaining water layers and deteriorating its quality.
Reservoirs belonging to the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation (CHE) in Catalonia are also at 30%. “decisive”.
increased restrictions
The Catalan Water Authority (ACA) approved this Wednesday the exceptional situation announced by the Government the day before for the Ter-Llobregat system feeding the Barcelona Metropolitan Area and the Fluvià-Muga aquifer (Girona).
This case includes a series of Restrictions for approximately 6 million residents of 224 municipalities, including Barcelona and major cities in the metropolitan area.
This stage reduce the allocation of agricultural irrigation by 40%, reduce industrial use by 15% and recreational use by 15 to 50%.
is it left It is forbidden to use water for irrigation of gardens and green areas. public or private (excluding survival irrigation of trees or plants by drip or drip or with a watering can).
Grass can only be watered on surfaces intended for combined sports applications, or with water recovered from treatment plants or rain collection.
Cleaning of streets, sewers, sidewalks, facades or buildings with drinking water is prohibited.
Pools can only be partially filled with recirculation systems and always minimum quantities of fresh water to guarantee the sanitary quality of the water.
A maximum of 230 liters of water is provided per person per day, an average that includes all types of consumption (domestic, agricultural or industrial) and is far from the 117 liters each Catalan spends at home, so for practical purposes there are no restrictions on drinking water.
Not enough precipitation is expected
After 29 months of not raining as it should since stormy Gloria in January 2020, hope is piling up in spring, but heavy rain for four months a scenario where water reserves are unlikely to return to normal levels.
In any case, to move on to the next emergency phase (16% of reserves) restrictions will be more severe and affect domestic useAccording to Teresa Jordà, Minister for Climate Action, the unlikely thing should happen: not one drop of rain falls a year.
The new ‘normal’ of drought
With the impact of the climate crisis, droughts will become more and more frequent, as the ACA predicts, Over the 2050 horizon, there will be a reduction of up to 18% in water availability in Catalonia.
It is a new normal that forces citizens to use a limited resource more responsibly – domestic consumption has increased rather than decreased in recent months – and forces governments to adapt to changing times.
The role of desalination plants and water recovery
In this adaptation process two desalination plants play a fundamental role Catalonia, which started to gain weight after the last major water crisis in 2008,
Currently, Catalonia has the Tordera desalination plants (next to Blanes and in operation since 2002) and El Prat (2009), providing 80 cubic meters of drinking water per year; this is a volume equivalent to the water consumed by the entire metropolitan area. in Barcelona for four months.
Generalitat plans to tender the €250m expansion of its Tordera desalination plant (Girona) this year, but no more such plants are currently planned to be built in Catalonia, according to Jordà.
Another way to gain more and more weight is regeneration., that is, an area where Generalitat sees progress when used water passes through a treatment plant for a second use; The Catalan ruler set out to double the volume of this water in the coming years.
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