The meteorological drought that Spain is going through and the poor state of its groundwater, the reserves of the future, represent some of the challenges that mark World Water Day, a day celebrated yesterday, Tuesday, to draw attention to this resource. vital.
Under the motto “Making the invisible visible”, this year the United Nations (UN) focused the celebrations of this day on making groundwater visible, because although it makes up 99% of all freshwater available in the liquid state, it still is “great unknown”.
According to the UN World Report on the Development of Water Resources 2022, groundwater already accounts for 50% of water withdrawal for domestic use and 25% of water for irrigation.
However, despite its importance and as a strategic reserve, groundwater management is poor and the state of overexploitation is worrying.
THE SITUATION AND MANAGEMENT OF GROUNDWATER IN SPAIN “IS NOT GOOD”
The environmental organization Greenpeace has warned that in Spain the situation and management of groundwater is “not good, and in fact the government itself recognizes that 40% of surface water bodies (rivers, lakes and coastal waters) and 45% of the subsoil are those that are not in good condition”.
Greenpeace’s water campaign leader, Julio Barea, has assured that urgent work and action is needed to change this situation, otherwise human supplies, food production and the survival of many ecosystems will be seriously jeopardized.
Adding to this problem is that Spain is in a state of meteorological drought, according to the latest data from the state weather agency (Aemet), after registering a 55% fall in rainfall this winter, ranking it as the second driest in the six decades for which we have records.
Despite the rains in recent days, the water level in the reservoir barely reaches 44% and the government has just passed a new Royal DecreeLaw enacting urgent measures to support the agricultural sector due to the drought.
TAKING ACTION AGAINST THE WATER CRISIS
For its part, Ecologists in Action (EA) has focused on the urgency of taking action in the face of the water crisis, pointing out that the Spanish state consumes a daily amount of water that exceeds the reserves, both on the surface and underground. , they are able to endure.
Over the past 25 years, along with overexploitation, available water resources have been reduced by about 20% due to average temperature increases due to climate change, EA says.
Added to this, according to EA, is the exorbitant increase in irrigation, which is the main consumer of water in Spain, especially if we consider the water that returns to the water system after use.
So while serving the population 80% of the water is returned to the water system, only 10% is returned to the water system for irrigation, a percentage that is also decreasing as irrigation becomes more modern and efficient.
WATER PLANNING AND AQUIFER PROTECTION TECHNOLOGIES
The Water Economy Forum has emphasized the importance of water planning and technologies both for groundwater regeneration and for information and quantification for the conservation of aquifers: a resource of great importance that is not always valuable enough.
They have asked the Confederation of Consumers and Users (CECU) for urgent and systematic action to guarantee the human right to water in Spain.
At least 67,000 people in Spain have seen their drinking water supply compromised due to this type of nitrate contamination in recent years, according to the CECU report, Nitrate Contamination: Why Industrial Agriculture and Livestock Breeding Are a Threat to the Human Right to Water.
The CECU regrets that public authorities are investing millions of euros in all sorts of isolated measures to remedy this situation, instead of spending that money on measures that have a real and longterm impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of consumers.