The metropolitan area of Barcelona, the second largest city in Spain, will go on alert this week, in the middle of autumn, because of the drought, with limitations on the use of water by the population, agriculture and industry.
Other areas of the Catalonia region had already been under this alert for months, due to historically low water reserves in a year with little rain, but the regional government decided today to extend the declaration to the city and the entire metropolitan area of Barcelona.
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In total, 6.6 million people in Catalonia will be under this alert and living with limitations in the use of water, equivalent to 85% of the region’s population.
The extension of the alert – which will come into force when it is published in the official bulletin, expectedly by the end of the week – is due to the fact that the water reserves in the basin of the Ter and Llobregat rivers, used to supply Barcelona, are at 34% of capacity, after months on end with no or very little rain.
This is the second time that the Catalan government has declared this alert in the Barcelona metropolitan area, after the same thing happened in 2008.
Because of what happened that year, the authorities invested in seawater desalination infrastructure and increased capacity to make drinking water, but the production thus achieved was not enough to avoid the alert this year.
The alert due to the drought now extended to Barcelona translates into the establishment of maximum domestic water consumption and the reduction of ceilings determined for agriculture or industry.
In the case of domestic consumption, the Catalan authorities say that it is not a problem, as the average consumption of the population is much lower than that established in the norm (250 liters per person daily).
However, with this alert in place, it is now prohibited to use hoses to wash cars, facades or sidewalks, for example.
Watering the gardens can only be done between 20:00 and 08:00 and the possibilities of filling and renewing the water in swimming pools are limited, in addition to other uses considered for recreational purposes.
In the case of agriculture, water used for irrigation was reduced by 25% and that used for livestock by 10%.
In industry, there must be a 5% decrease in water consumed.
The Catalan government’s Climate Action adviser (equivalent to a minister in a central government), Teresa Jordà, said that the level of water reserves in the Ter-Llobregat basin “is worrying” and appealed to the population to save.
According to him, the water stored at this moment guarantees the supply of the city and metropolitan area “for more than a year” and no cuts are foreseen.
Water reserves in dams across Catalonia are at 34% of total capacity, the lowest level since 2007.
The situation in the basin of the Ter and Llobregat rivers had already been on pre-alert since February of this year and the adoption of measures in these nine months, such as increasing the production of desalination structures, managed to postpone the extension of the alert to the zone of Barcelona, according to the Catalan Water Agency (ACA).
Following the announcement by the regional government, the City Council of Barcelona advanced today with specific measures for the city that include limiting the watering of private gardens to two days a week, emptying 42% of public ornamental fountains (which work with potable water ) and for reducing the amount of water used by the municipality’s cleaning services.
The Chamber also asks the population to save water on a daily basis and gives the example of choosing “a five-minute shower instead of a bath”.
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