The ‘ABC-Ideal’ meeting highlights the role of public-private collaboration to combat the water deficit
A State pact on water, more necessary than ever now that the next hydrological planning cycle is on the table, was one of the main demands of the Forum ‘The water we live in’ organized by ‘ABC-Ideal’, which took place yesterday at the Vocento headquarters with the sponsorship of Cajamar and the Community of Irrigators of Campo de Cartagena. It was a multidisciplinary confluence of experts with a common goal: to vindicate the present and future of water as an essential piece for economic and social sustainability, as an element of territorial structuring and as an object of innovation and efficiency.
Yolanda Gómez, deputy director of ‘ABC’, introduced the conference and gave way to Eduardo Baamonde, president of Cajamar, who highlighted how water is a “strategic element of the economy and society of our country. Therefore, a state pact should be reached, with a long-term vision, to stop using this scarce and fundamental good as a missile between territories. He also highlighted Cajamar’s contribution both in financing and in supporting technological implementation in this decisive socio-economic activity.
Stable legal framework
‘Innovation and technology in the management of water resources’, the first table, moderated by Charo Barroso, coordinator of the ‘ABC Natural’ supplement, was attended by the director of Sustainability of the Cosentino Group, Antonio Urdiales; the director of Cajamar Innova, Ricardo García; the president of the Business Confederation of the Province of Almería, Asempal, José Cano García, and the CEO of HS Group, Heribert Schneider. Urdiales commented that, if circularity is key, “in water it is even more so, and therefore there must be adequate planning and a stable legal framework.”
“This scarce and fundamental good should not be used as a throwing weapon between territories”
Eduardo Baamonde
President of Cajamar
According to Cano García, “we are facing an even more critical challenge than energy management.” And he highlighted the efficiency ratios achieved in the Andalusian province (the 100 liters used to grow a kilo of tomatoes in other parts of Spain, or the 42 in France, in Almería become 27) and the great effort of the region to establish itself as the ‘orchard of Europe’, in times of enormous population increases. “In this context, we must insist that public-private collaboration be strengthened to combat the water deficit,” he said.
“We are the fifth country in the world in desalination plants, and the first in its use for agriculture”
Sunday Zarzo
Pte. Desalination Company
The second table focused on water as an element of interterritorial balance. The mayor of El Ejido, Francisco Góngora; the president of the Spanish Association of Desalination and Reuse, Domingo Zarzo; the president of the Euro-Mediterranean Water Institute Foundation, Francisco Cabezas, and the Honorary President of the Mediterranean Water Institute, Milagros Couchoud. “There is no development in any area without water,” said Góngora.
“Feeling of ownership”
In the case of desalination, Zarzo stressed that it is not just about making drinking water, but about decontaminating it: “We are the fifth country in the world in plants of this type, the first for use in agriculture.” He agreed on the need to have a national water pact, something in which Francisco Cabezas abounded, who alluded to “the feeling of appropriation of water resources, contaminated by sociopolitical interests. Therefore, we must pay attention to the irrigation communities, which are on the ground, in a complex field, since the study of hydrological flows is not an exact science.
The challenge of producing more sustainably and with less flow
At the table entitled ‘The efficient use of water in irrigation and its contribution to development’, moderated by the delegate of ‘Ideal Almería’, Miguel Cárceles, the president of the El Saltador Irrigation Community of the Almanzora Valley, Fernando Rubio, spoke ; the professor of the Plant Production area of the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, Alejandro Pérez Pastor; the director of Agrifood Innovation of Cajamar, Roberto García Torrente; the president of the Federation of Irrigators of Almería (Feral) and spokesman for the Almería Water Table, José Antonio Fernández Maldonado, and the university professor of Regional Geographic Analysis at the University of Almería, Andrés García Lorca.
Rubio wanted to underline the contrast experienced by the population of Almería: from emigration due to the persistent drought to what has been achieved today thanks to efficient water management; yes, not without difficulties: “We don’t want what belongs to us not to be taken away,” he said.
Continuous training
In this fight for efficiency, Pérez Pastor wanted to claim the importance of training “and in a continuous mode, to adapt to continuous changes.” Fernández Maldonado agreed in highlighting the work carried out in the Spanish Southeast «which guarantees the supply not only to Spain, but also to the shelves of European businesses; even in the harshest summer months we show what we are capable of doing with a cubic meter of water». And also from the academic field, García Lorca contributed his point of view on the importance of technological contribution for greater efficiency: «We find ourselves in the era of genomic intervention, which will contribute to greater plant production with less contribution of Water”.
Antonio González, general director of ‘Ideal Almería’, closed the day with a few words about the active involvement of the Vocento media in the social and economic development of the different sectors of economic and business activity, in this case around ‘ The water we live on’.
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