The CHS plans to reduce extractions in thousands of overexploited wells in the coming years, while the environmental objectives and the good quantitative status of most of the water bodies must be achieved before 2027. For those in which another extension is allowed, there will be partial objectives that will also affect the exploitation of the wells.
The Confederation estimates that the cut will exceed 200 hectometres per year, the equivalent of the average annual transfer from the Tagus to the Segura for irrigation. These flows will have to be supplied, in theory, with more desalination. The new basin plan specifies that 60% of the groundwater bodies are in poor quantitative condition due to overexploitation. The objective is to match the volume extracted with the recharge capacity of each aquifer, and it will be done by applying extraction management plans and control networks.
The Confederation recalls that the Kingdom of Spain “is obliged to reach a balance between the exploitation of all the groundwater bodies in the demarcation by the end of the year 2027” and specifies that, on this date, the moratorium on the deadline is already included original, which was the year 2015. It maintains that “it will not be necessary, in general, to proceed to the closure of all the existing catchments in those masses that present overexploitation, but it will be necessary to reduce the volume currently extracted until it is equal to its recharge” . The new basin plan calculates the available underground resources at 492 hectometres per year, with total withdrawals of 455, which reveals “significant pressure”.
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