2024-04-05 08:03:02
According to the AEMET, State Meteorological Agency, in the last 40 years there have been three significant episodes of prolonged and intense dryness in Spain: from 1982 to 1984, from 1991 to 1996 and from 2005 to 2009. But, without a doubt, the most serious is the one we face from 2021 to today.
As a result, 74% of the territory is at risk of desertification. Spain is also one of the industrialized countries with the greatest water stress in the world: according to the World Bank, the ratio stood at 43.25% in 2020 (the percentage expresses the ratio of total fresh water extracted to total renewable water from natural form).
The United Nations Environment Program defines as “dry lands” the areas of tropical climate and temperate climate with an aridity index of less than 0.65 (taking into account, for this calculation, humidity variables, water reserves and evapotranspiration). Most of the Spanish territory belongs to this category, with the addition that almost the entire Mediterranean slope is classified as “semi-arid” (index between 0.2 and 0.5).
Intensive agriculture and tourism: water stress factors
Spain is the third member country of the European Union with the most agricultural area used, a sector that consumes between 70% and 80% of the water. 77% of irrigation is carried out with efficient localized systems, such as drip, although the remaining 34% still uses sprinkler or gravity irrigation, techniques associated with greater waste of this resource.
Also, the turismo It is another major water stress factor. A Spaniard consumes 127 liters of water per day, while the consumption of a tourist ranges between 450 and 800 l/day. Before the pandemic, this sector represented 12.4% of the GDP and generated 13% of employment, although it did so under the claim of “sun and sand”, associated with greater environmental vulnerability.
The Government makes its intention against the drought firm
In 2021, the Government presented the “Spain 2050” report, in which it recognizes its concern about water stress, and advocates “reorganize agricultural uses and crops, prioritizing sustainable and socially fair agriculture”. Furthermore, the document recognizes that water resources of the country are decreasing in quantity and quality, and that more than half of the aquifers have a high degree of contamination by nitrates, with 36% of them at risk of overexploitation.
The document seeks to be a reference to mediate in the “water wars”, faced by those who defend the natural capital that represents the environment and intensive agricultural irrigators, against those who are responsible for the deterioration of aquifers.
Dispersion in water management
Spain has 40 hydrographic basins, 9 inter-community basin organizations with 12 different areas of management and 19 hydrographic demarcations with powers over water. To all this, it should be added that there is no regulatory mechanism at the state level. Likewise, small entities cannot access financing for facilities and technology necessary to modernize and optimize water supply and treatment. Likewise, the water rate variability in the territory is 550%, with the reference that the European average is 107%.
It should also be taken into account that Spain has the European record for sanctions for non-compliance with purification: up to 53.4 million euros in 30 years, adding 10 million euros more each semester.
“A collaborative action plan is urgently needed that, from both public and private entities, focuses attention on a problem that can lead to serious consequences for the social system, public services, the current economic order, or, simply, the transformation of the day to day of citizens”, concludes Carlos Garriga, director of We Are Water Foundation.
The lack of investment in water and sanitation, for example, without any specific allocation from Next Generation funds, added to the lack of a collective strategy, means that the problem of drought continues without a clear roadmap for its alleviation or eradication. . The challenge is to guarantee long-term water security, and if achieved, Spain could become a reference of hope for 2.5 million people living in dry lands around the world.
The We Are Water Foundation, promoted by Roca Group in 2010, has two fundamental objectives: raise awareness and make people reflect to public opinion and institutions about the need to create a new water culture that allows fair development and sustainable management of water resources in the world, as well as carrying out all types of actions aimed at alleviating the negative effects of scarcity. of the water. The areas of action of this non-profit organization include intervention in infrastructure, education, health and research in the most needy areas of the planet. To date, the We Are Water Foundation has developed 96 projects in 38 countries, helping more than 3.7 million people.
Source: We Are Water Foundation
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