This Friday, the Junta de Andalucía limited water consumption in the province of Malaga, an area with the most restrictions and supply cuts in the entire region, due to the drought. The management committee has decreed a maximum expenditure of 160 liters per day per inhabitant in the capital of Malaga, the Costa del Sol and the Axarquía area, so the measure now affects the entire province.
The decision has been made after the lack of rain and the absence of precipitation forecast for the coming months give a gloomy outlook: the reservoirs may remain empty at the end of the year. If 2023 was the calendar year with the least rain for Malaga since there are records – 1961 – so far this hydrological year, which started in October, only a third of the average has fallen. This situation has been repeated in the last five seasons, according to data offered by the Andalusian Administration. A 20% reduction in industrial water use has also been established.
The decision was made this morning at a meeting of the Andalusian Mediterranean Basins Drought Management Committee held precisely in Malaga. The restriction has arrived, coincidentally, on the rainiest day in living memory in many months, which has left up to 80 liters per square meter in areas of the Serranía de Ronda. Good news, but not enough for a province that is severely suffering from drought, and whose reservoirs are at 15.6% capacity, with La Viñuela—the largest in the province—at the limit, with barely a 7.5% of dammed water: it only contains 12 hectometers of the 164 it can hold, according to data from the Hidrosur Network.
The first supply cuts already started in the Axarquía region during the summer, with nightly water cuts that still exist in 15 towns with a total of about 150,000 inhabitants. The entire coastline was also limiting the possible uses. Today, the use of drinking water for washing streets, filling private swimming pools, watering gardens, public and private parks, golf courses, washing cars outside authorized establishments, ornamental fountains that do not have a closed circuit is already prohibited. water, showers and public fountains. “We are facing an extreme situation and it is not about alarming, but about being realistic,” the Andalusian president, Juan Manuel Moreno, warned at the beginning of the year, explaining that at least 30 days of continuous rain were needed to avoid restrictions in the entire community in summer.
“The Junta de Andalucía will be in charge of measuring the volume at the entrance of the municipal header tanks or at the collective network intakes and may adopt the limitation measures at the source of flow that are necessary in case of exceedance,” warns the Administration. And it sets the limit per citizen at 160 liters per day in the municipalities that are directly regulated by it, but also in those without regulation, such as the Guadiaro River area in the Serranía de Ronda, the Sierra Tejeda and the entire Guadalhorce area, in which includes municipalities such as Antequera, Coín or Torremolinos. The entire province already had consumption limited to 200 liters per person per day, but now it has been reduced to 160. The capital, for example, has been reducing the pressure — as other towns such as Fuengirola are already doing — to reduce consumption.
“The more water savings we have, the longer the reserve we have will last, that is evident,” said Francisco de la Torre, mayor of Malaga, who participated on Wednesday in the so-called Malaga Metropolis Global Forum. All the Administrations involved in water management attended the meeting to promote measures that allow expanding the use of regenerated and desalinated water, in addition to seeking solutions so that the loss in the supply network is as small as possible. In fact, the installation of portable desalination plants and the transportation of water by boat from Murcia are already being studied.
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The limit of 160 liters per day per inhabitant also extends to the neighboring province of Cádiz. Specifically to Campo de Gibraltar (Algeciras, Los Barrios, Castellar de la Frontera, Línea de la Concepción, San Roque, Jimena de la Frontera and San Martín del Tesorillo). Meanwhile, the 200 liter limitation affects, also from this Friday, the regulated area of Cuevas de Almanzora (Carboneras, Los Gallardos, Garrucha, Mojácar, Albox, Antas, Arboleas, Cuevas del Almanzora, Huércal-Overa, Taberno, Vera and Zurgena) in Almería and the upper basin of the Verde de Almuñécar river (Jete, Otívar, Lentejí and Salobreña), in Granada.
The new restrictions on water consumption in Andalusia are added to those in force in Catalonia, also seriously affected by the drought, where on February 1 it was announced that almost six million people must limit their consumption to 200 liters per inhabitant and day.
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