The 14.6% of the territory is in emergency due to water shortage and the 27.4%, on alert

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA), have presented today to the Council of Ministers the Report on Drought Management in 2023. The 2022/23 hydrological year is having a globally dry character in Spain as a whole: 14.6% of the national territory is in emergency due to water shortage and 27.4% is on alert because the global average precipitation is 17 .1% below the normal reference value for the same months of the 1991-2020 period.

As a consequence, the reserve in the reservoirs has decreased considerably in the last 10 years. The data, as of September 12, show that the thresholds are especially low: the Spanish water reserve is at 37% with 20,734 hm3 accumulated, with the Guadalquivir accounts (19.1%) and the internal ones of Catalonia (23.3%) being the who are going through a more serious situation. DANA has brought relief in some areas, has improved soil humidity and has served to recover a certain volume of storage, however, it has not solved the existing problems.

The climate emergency causes increasingly frequent and intense droughts and Spain is in a situation of greater vulnerability compared to other Member States of the European Union. This requires a robust and effective response from the authorities in which public investment is revealed as a key piece. Aware of this need, within the framework of the 2022-2027 Hydrological Plans, the Executive foresees an investment of 11,839 million to promote desalination and reuse, as well as efficiency in the use of the resource, through the improvement of pipelines and regulation infrastructure. To this endowment are also added 3,060 million from the PERTE for water digitalization, which promotes the use of new technologies and big data and will represent a qualitative advance in water and drought management.

Author: Alejandro Martínez
Photography: Ruth Pilar Hortua