Spain is facing a devastating drought. A few days ago the Ministry of Agriculture met urgently and recognized that the situation is serious and widespread, highlighting the condition in the Guadalquivir, Guadiana and inland basins of Catalonia. The data indicate that the average value of accumulated rainfall since the beginning of the hydrological year in Spain is 23.5% lower than the normal value, which is a significant drop. Rice farmers already in 2022 were able to plant only 30% of their surface. This year, if it doesn’t rain before May, there may be no planting.
A terrible drought. One of the areas with the highest risk for crops is the Guadalquivir basin, where the level of rainfall is worse than the national level: 35% less than the average, with March 5 being the last day that a drop fell from the sky. This has resulted in a deficit of 70%, which has led the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation to establish the end of the irrigation campaign on September 30. Its president summed it up in three forceful sentences: “The situation is very bad. It is the worst year since 1995. Managing misery is very complicated.”
All this has led to a series of extraordinary measures that have not been seen in Andalusia for a long time. To alleviate the situation, the Guadalquivir River Basin Discharge Commission (CHG), the body in charge of distributing the available water among the users of the basin, has agreed to begin the irrigation campaign with a discharge of 385 cubic hectometres for the irrigation of 345,000 hectares. A decrease of 36% compared to the previous campaign.
The crop situation. The reason is mainly that the planting of rice requires a management of the discharges that right now cannot be guaranteed. For this reason, the commission has also authorized an allocation of 700 cubic meters of water per hectare for the crops with the highest water consumption, which represents a reduction of almost 90% compared to its concession allocation, which is 6,000 cubic meters. And that auxiliary discharges can be adopted for October, fundamentally to guarantee the maintenance of the olive grove and the grove.
unloading by surprise. With all the regulatory mess and a pressing emergency situation, what the irrigators in the basin did not expect is that the Confederation was going to start discharging this past Saturday without warning and without giving information on the final irrigation endowment, which has generated widespread confusion. And a lot of criticism. From the Association of Irrigation Communities of Andalusia (CREATES), this unexpected discharge has been a sign of “absolute lack of control” in the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation.
Especially since the institution had already ruled out a few days ago premature releases before the period established at the end of April despite the requests of farmers who They see their crops in danger due to the lack of water. And right now what worries everyone the most is that this priceless resource is wasted: water.
What the irrigators ask for. Mainly support to help them cope with the strong impact that the drought is having on Andalusian crops as long as not a drop of water falls. The Association of Irrigation Communities of Andalusia (Feragua) has requested measures such as the inclusion of palliative and compensatory economic and fiscal measures in the Drought Decree, such as the condition of irrigation fees and rates for 2023, IBI exemptions and other labor-related measures that facilitate possible ERTEs by irrigation communities due to the lack of activity in this irrigation campaign.
They also consider necessary the availability of emergency wells or other tools for assigning water rights, to facilitate the use of the scarce resources available. Among them, undertaking some short-term works, such as the connections of treatment plants and desalination plants to the point of consumption, and some emergency projects such as, for example, improving the inlet channel and conditioning the pumping of the Arenoso dam, in Córdoba.
Image: Flickr (jesus rodriguez)
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