MADRID. In the last three years in Catalonia it has rained very little. And now the situation has become critical, with the water reserves of Barcelona and around 200 other municipalities – an area of six million inhabitants – now falling below the risk threshold of 16%. The regional government today officially decreed the emergency phase for this entire area: from tomorrow the per capita availability of permitted water cannot exceed 200 liters per day, while there will be more drastic limits than those already applied in recent months for agriculture , livestock and industry. For the moment, the aim is to avoid direct consequences in homes, but activities such as filling swimming pools, watering sports fields, gardens and other green areas or washing the car outside of specifically designated points are already prohibited (with exceptions).
“Catalonia is suffering from the worst episode of drought in the last century,” Catalan President Pere Aragonès explained at a press conference. “It hasn't rained as it should for more than three years, but during all this time we haven't stood still”, he added, recalling that “a special anti-drought plan” has been active since September 2021, with which, progressively, measures aimed at «predicting and anticipating the worst scenarios».
To illustrate the evolution of the situation, the authorities had already created the so-called “drought traffic light” some time ago, with phases of progressive emergency and the measures considered necessary for each of them associated with different colours. And the government tried in every way to prevent the metropolitan area of Barcelona from ending up in the red, even as the Catalans' gazes towards the sky became increasingly filled with concern.
«Our commitment has allowed us to delay the declaration of a state of emergency by 15 months», said Aragonès, who recalled how in this period the water arriving in homes from desalination or regeneration”, and recognized “the important efforts” of “citizens and the productive fabric” to avoid waste. Now, he added, “an extra effort” will be needed, but the goal is to leave this situation behind “as soon as possible”.
As for restrictions specifically, the new situation imposes cuts of 80% in agricultural consumption, 50% in the case of livestock and 25% in industry. While as regards general consumption, the limit of 200 liters per person foreseen in the first emergency phase (reducible to 160 if necessary later) will have to be enforced by the municipalities: in this sense, they will be able to reduce the pressure of disbursements or provide for hourly cuts in supplies, measures already adopted in some small Spanish towns, especially in the south, afflicted like Catalonia by a severe drought.
Prohibited uses include using drinking water to wash streets or other public spaces and using water in general for elements such as fountains, showers on beaches and swimming pools. Measures, the latter, which will end up particularly affecting the tourism sector, which has already been mobilized for some time to seek alternative solutions: as he writes El País, for example, we are thinking of using sea water in these cases, while the authorities have developed information campaigns to raise visitor awareness of the need to avoid waste. And in the meantime, the municipality of Barcelona is also busy on another front: trying to save as many trees as possible by using non-drinkable underground water for irrigation.
At the moment, the government explained today, it is not able to predict how long existing water resources will last. “But we won't run out, because we are producing a lot of it,” explained Climate Action Councilor David Mascort, referring to methods such as desalination. In an extreme case, he added, another emergency solution is also on the table: bringing water from other territories by transporting it by ship.
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