Spain's drought: a glimpse of our future?

[Aurora]

The Independent - 24/05/08

Barcelona is a dry city. It is dry in a way that two days of showers can do nothing to alleviate. The Catalan capital's weather can change from one day to the next, but its climate, like that of the whole Mediterranean region, is inexorably warming up and drying out. And in the process this most modern of cities is living through a crisis that offers a disturbing glimpse of metropolitan futures everywhere.

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[MacG]

Yea, sure, it's "the climate". It could not have anything to do with increased consumption? A building boom accompanied by swimming pools and golf courses?

[Aurora]

Yea, sure, it's "the climate". It could not have anything to do with increased consumption? A building boom accompanied by swimming pools and golf courses?

It would seem that the authorities in Barcelona are concerned about the misuse of water.

Other entrepreneurs, including swimming pool manufacturers, have less room for manoeuvre. "The authorities are criminalising us," complained Josep Sadurni, of Catalonia's association of swimming pool manufacturers, which predicts losses of up to ?200m (?160m) this year. "Who'll buy a pool if they can't fill it?" Mr Sadurni asked.

[contadino]

I read elsewhere that the biggest problem is the creaking old infrastructure that has seem next to no maintenance for donkeys years. The mains water network is leaking like a sieve.

[leroy]

Yea, sure, it's "the climate". It could not have anything to do with increased consumption? A building boom accompanied by swimming pools and golf courses?

My uncle lives in a little ecohouse right up in the mountains of the Sierra Navada where the population has declined over the decades, though I am sure modern lifestyles demand more water than did the shepherds of yore. The water is supplied through channels that have existed since they were built by the Moors some several hundred years ago, with each Finker taking the water for an exact number of hours before the sluice gates up the mountainside are changed so that the water catchment is directed to another family's storage well. Over the last ten years the amount of water has dropped incredibly. Agriculture is failing and property is becoming unsaleable. This is not due to swimming pools or hordes of British ex-pats, but because the climate of Africa is inexorably creeping into southern Europe at an alarming rate.

[MacG]

Yea, sure, it's "the climate". It could not have anything to do with increased consumption? A building boom accompanied by swimming pools and golf courses?

My uncle lives in a little ecohouse right up in the mountains of the Sierra Navada where the population has declined over the decades, though I am sure modern lifestyles demand more water than did the shepherds of yore. The water is supplied through channels that have existed since they were built by the Moors some several hundred years ago, with each Finker taking the water for an exact number of hours before the sluice gates up the mountainside are changed so that the water catchment is directed to another family's storage well. Over the last ten years the amount of water has dropped incredibly. Agriculture is failing and property is becoming unsaleable. This is not due to swimming pools or hordes of British ex-pats, but because the climate of Africa is inexorably creeping into southern Europe at an alarming rate.

Have such periods never occurred before? The last 1000 years have been pretty variable.

[Andy Hunt]

Why are you still worrying about the causes of climate change MacG? I thought you said the concept is already past its sell-by date?

Or is there life in the old dog yet?

[MacG]

Why are you still worrying about the causes of climate change MacG? I thought you said the concept is already past its sell-by date?

Or is there life in the old dog yet?

Nah, there are still some tremors in the left rear leg of the thing. Expect them to cease soon though.

[snow hope]

African climate might be migrating into Spain, but I have been monitoring the temps in Rabat and Casablanca over the last couple of months and they are only in the low 20s most of the time! So maybe the African climate is migrating from the UK???

[Michelle In Ga]

My heart goes out to them. We just went through the worst
drought in a hundred years in the south east US. It
was awful. No rain for ever. The grass crunched beneath
my feet. My horse collicked. The ground was so dry
that long established trees died and horses were sold
for less than 50 bucks.

[skeptik]

Drought? What drought?. It's pissing down again as I write this, and according to the forecast, pissing down in Catalunya this afternoon. I seem to have a typical view of North Wales out of my window rather than the Costas...

The drought situation in Spain is very varied. In Barcelona the problem is exacerbated by old, crappily maintained leaky pipework. i.e underinvestment over a long period. The situation isn't helped by a byzantine system of ownership (private, private/public and public) of the water resources and the supply infrastructure, and an alphabet soup of overlapping regulatory bodies.

Rainfall graph of the past year where I am.. No that's not a mistake. !7 inches of rain last October - by comparison London averages 23 inches per annum.

[biffvernon]

Wow, it just shows what a benign climate we have. 17 inches in a month would bring Britain to a complete standstill - our infrastructure could never cope.

[leroy]

Have such periods never occurred before? The last 1000 years have been pretty variable.

Yes, sorry MacG - I didn't think to hard about that response with any real perspective to timescale, and was concentrating on the drama for the current residents and the near future.

Wow, it just shows what a benign climate we have. 17 inches in a month would bring Britain to a complete standstill - our infrastructure could never cope.

Had a lot of rain up in Leeds last summer when I was up there, and that buggered the entire city up. Couldn't get home from work, couldn't get down south by train. Proper mess, and looked like it happened again recently from what I saw on the telly.

[Erik]

Drought? What drought?. It's pissing down again as I write this, and according to the forecast, pissing down in Catalunya this afternoon. I seem to have a typical view of North Wales out of my window rather than the Costas...

The drought situation in Spain is very varied. In Barcelona the problem is exacerbated by old, crappily maintained leaky pipework. i.e underinvestment over a long period. The situation isn't helped by a byzantine system of ownership (private, private/public and public) of the water resources and the supply infrastructure, and an alphabet soup of overlapping regulatory bodies.

Rainfall graph of the past year where I am.. No that's not a mistake. !7 inches of rain last October - by comparison London averages 23 inches per annum.

Been raining here too, for days, weeks, in fact it's been raining heavily ever since I installed my automatic watering system around the roof terrace

The stats from the Spanish meteorological agency (pretty colour-coded graph on page three of this document) show that in April the rainfall in and around Barcelona reached between 50%-75% of the average figure for the last ten years, i.e. it was between 25 and 50% below the average (light orange area on the map on the right hand side). However the same could be said for the Madrid area and there's not much talk of drought here (quite the opposite). The Valencia area though (which is where you are Skeptik, aren't you?) has had between 25 and 50% more rainfall in April than the 10 year average (darkish blue area on the map).

Conclusion? I dunno, "the rain in Spain doesn't fall mainly on the plain"?

[biffvernon]

Had a lot of rain up in Leeds last summer

It was just four inches - not seventeen.

I guess Spain is going to have to invest more heavily in dams and reservoirs and storage tanks of all sorts in the future.