Alex Trelinski
AN ANDALULCIA group has warned against getting too excited about recent rain easing the on-going drought since there is still a serious problem as large parts of the region have seen no improvement.
‘La Mesa del Aqua de Andalucia’ is a group consisting of various social organisations including trade unions and the Facua consumer association.
They say that though the drought has eased in parts of the region, water scarcity remains especially high due to the big demand from productive sectors like agriculture and industry.
‘La Mesa’ has called for the application of special municipal drought and emergency plans to stagger measures to reduce restrictions, both initially and during any major de-escalation of usage rules.
It also wants social justice to be a factor to guarantee the survival of family and professional farming in order to mitigate job losses caused by the drought in the Sevilla area.
In a statement, the group recognises that in March brought some relief to the serious problems that Andalucia has been experiencing, but warned that rainfall was not distributed evenly throughout the region.
In the Tinto-Odiel-Piedras and Guadalquivir basins, especially in the former, which affects the Huelva province, rainfall has been abundant and has led to a significant recovery of reservoir water levels.
However, in the Guadalete-Barbate basin and in the Andalucian Mediterranean basins, the rainfall has been lower, substantially reduced in the eastern-most areas.
That means that Cadiz and Malaga provinces have not seen an improved situation along with the coasts of Almeria and Granada, and are actually worse off than a year ago.
For that reason, social water board believes ‘it is not the time to throw bells’ into the air, because the rains have not solved the drought generally and not compensated for the accumulated rainfall deficit.
The group said that the meteorological phenomenon of drought and rainfall deficit, cannot be confused with scarcity, which is the imbalance between the high demands for water, especially in the productive sectors (irrigation and tourism) and the available resources.
They insist on the to draw up and have Special Drought Plans (PES), as established by state and regional water laws, since, despite its shortcomings, the Guadalquivir basin has allowed for the staggered application of measures to reduce supplies and take other action from the early stages of the drought.
It advocates having drought emergency plans drawn up for all towns with at least 10,000 inhabitants, as mandated by the Andalucian Water Law.
READ MORE:
- Drought latest in Spain: Catalunya will keep restrictions in place over summer despite recent rain
- Drought latest in Spain: Reservoir levels surge in certain regions following days of rain – while others remain at…
