Summer begins in Spain with reservoirs at 53% capacity

The emblases of Spain are running out

Droughts are becoming more frequent and more intense due to climate change. Spain is a very vulnerable country to the effects of it. Water management becomes imperative and of vital importance for the future and the summer that we have to face with high temperatures and heat waves.

The deficit of rainfall that we have been dragging throughout the Spanish territory since recent years and after the warmest spring in half a century, causes us to start the summer with the reservoirs at 53% of their total capacity. This corresponds to almost 20% below what we had at this time in 2007. What can we do about this?

Droughts and reservoirs running out

According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and Environment (Mapama), in this last week of June, the hydraulic reserve is 29.928 cubic hectometres, 53,5%, a percentage very far from the average for the decade, which was 71,4%, and last year, 71,7%, and which place 2017 almost twenty percentage points below the average.

In just one week since the summer began, the water reserves of the swamps have decreased by 750 cubic hectometres (This corresponds to 1,3% of the total capacity of the reservoirs). The Ebro river is the one that has suffered the most loss with a decrease of 153 cubic hectometres.

Despite these data, Mapama affirms that the rate at which water resources decrease is not so high for this time of year. This is due to the fact that there have been some rains in recent weeks and that, above all, the consumption of water has been contained in many places, and they have even been restricted in certain reservoirs due to the situation in which we find ourselves.

It is a low figure if one takes into account that the maximum occupation of the Spanish reservoirs takes place around these dates, once the thaw has concluded.


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