Spain faces a problem derived from the climate crisis: water is increasingly scarce because rainfall is decreasing and it is getting hotter. But it continues to develop a first-class irrigated agriculture sector that is the country’s largest consumer of water.
Against this backdrop, the organization Greenpeace has analyzed how much Spain could irrigate to avoid falling into “water collapse” in a scenario of resource reduction. And it has reached an account of almost one million hectares compared to the almost four million that there are currently, especially those dedicated to intensive and industrial agriculture.
The work titled How much can we water? Analysis of the water available in a Spain with climate change quantifies the impact that the expected reduction in water availability in the coming years (2030-2100) will have on the countryside, taking into account meteorological forecasts and increased demand. “This is not the first report we have made about it.but now it was necessary to delve into the ‘how much’, to specify it,” says Julio Barea, head of Greenpeace’s Water Campaign Program.
Spain is the fourth EU country with the greatest water stress and ranks 28th in the world. “The availability of water in our country is decreasing. However, water consumption continues. If we do not address this problem, we will reach a water collapse, which we are already on the verge of,” says the expert. 80% of the water in Spain is used for agriculture, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Our territory currently has 3.8 million irrigated hectares. Greenpeace states that they are expected to continue increasing in the short term, according to the review of current basin management plans. “However, the strategy itself to combat desertification and all climate models for the future indicate that there will be fewer and fewer resources available, more and more frequent droughts,” they recall.
Less precipitation
The forecast is that rainfall will be reduced, according to the organization’s study, by between 2% and 4% by 2040, between 8% and 12% by 2070 and between 15% and 26% by 2100. The water reserves most affected by this would be those of the hydrological demarcations of the Canary Islands, Guadalete-Barbate and the Andalusian Mediterranean Basins. Also that of Guadiana, Guadalquivir, Tinto-Odiel-Piedras or those of the Balearic Islands.
At the same time, due to the expected rise in temperatures that is occurring and that will become increasingly pronounced with global warming, it is estimated that by 2040 the potential evapotranspiration of these places – the maximum amount of water capable of being evaporated in a given climate – increase by between 3% and 4% by 2040, between 10% and 14% by 2070 and between 19% and 31% by 2100, with the Duero basin being the most affected by this cause, analysis by environmentalists abounds.
Both variables together will result in, by 2040, in Spain there will be 889 cubic hectometers less water available in the best scenario and 1,515 in the worst. That is to say: the available water will be reduced by between 4% and 7% in just 20 years.
Only a 20-25% cut in current irrigation could guarantee availability of sufficient water for the population, but hydrological plans continue to project an increase in irrigation.
Greenpeace
“Only a 20-25% cut in current irrigation could guarantee availability of sufficient water for the population, but hydrological plans continue to project an increase in irrigation,” Greenpeace points out. This cut would translate into eliminating around one million hectares of irrigated land in the country: a country at risk of drought where the volumes of water stored in reservoirs are already 31% lower than the average of the last 10 years, but which intends to continue increasing legal irrigation until 2033 (until 2039 in Segura), says the NGO.
So much so that, in the Duero, Ebro, and Guadiana basins, more than 106,892 new irrigated hectares will be added, according to the records of their hydrological plans that the organization has been reviewing.
We want and need agriculture yes or yes, but not like this
Julio Barea
— Greenpeace Water Campaign Manager
“We want and need agriculture no matter what, but not like this. Because? Because agriculture in recent years has changed a lot. It is no longer the agriculture that we think of: the small farmer, the family that works… Now many lands have been regrouped, large, very large farms have been made, and these farms, increasingly, are in the hands of large agribusinesses,” he denounces. Barea.
Focus on large farms
Greenpeace demands as essential measures that the Government establish a roadmap to reduce irrigation by 2040, points out that the reduction of these irrigation must focus on large farms, demands as essential to eliminate all illegal irrigation in the country, to prioritize reductions in already stressed areas (aquifers in poor quantitative and chemical condition as well as in areas vulnerable to nitrate contamination), which freeze any new irrigation project that is located in these areas defined as critical, as well as investments in new irrigation in all basins, among other recommendations. “Our hope is that they will listen to us, but we have before us a Ministry of Agriculture that is going completely in the opposite direction,” exclaims the expert.
Source: www.eldiario.es
