WATER POLITICS

Catalonia, home to Spain’s second-largest regional economy and popular tourist destination Barcelona, has a plan to live without rain by the end of this decade.

The multi-billion-euro strategy — which includes investing in desalination plants — has gained urgency as the region looks likely to soon declare a state of emergency for water, and global warming makes droughts in the future more common.

Government officials said levels in multiple reservoirs across the region have dropped below 16% — a critical point — following 39 consecutive months of below-average rain and two years of record heat. The announcement has raised concerns that Barcelona is approaching Day Zero, the moment when it will have to bring in water by tanker ships.

“Ships won’t solve our drought problem, they’re just a solution to provide water to critical infrastructure in an extreme case,” said David Mascort, the Catalan government’s head of climate action. “But we know if we make the necessary investments by 2030 we’ll have enough water to face structural drought and stop depending on rain.”

The Mediterranean region is warming 20% faster than the global average and southern Europe is suffering the worst drought conditions in at least 500 years, with Catalonia and Spain’s southern region of Andalusia among the most impacted. While autumn rains in some parts of the country alleviated a record drought, precipitation in these two regions remained below average and forecasts for coming months are not encouraging either.

That’s led regional governments in Catalonia and Andalusia to look for every possible solution, including awareness campaigns targeting citizens, fining companies that waste too much water and investing billions of euros into desalination plants and major infrastructure works.

A €2.4 billion ($2.6 billion) investment plan running through to 2027 will allow Catalonia and its economy, Spain’s second-largest after Madrid, to stop depending on rain to function, authorities say. After 2030, underground reserves, recycled water and desalinated water should be enough to fulfill the needs of the 3.3 million people living in the wider Barcelona area, along with millions more around it, Mascort said.

Spain already boasts Europe’s two largest desalination plants. Barcelona’s facility produces 200,000 cubic meters of drinkable water every day, the equivalent of 53 Olympic swimming pools and enough to cover more than half of the city’s daily water demand. The Catalan government plans to expand the capacity of a second desalination plant, and to build a third one.

Since November the region has been under a state of pre-emergency for water, with restrictions including a ban on re-filling swimming pools, watering lawns and public gardens, and using showers in gyms and sports installations. Trees are watered with recycled sewage water or underground water, while decorative fountains have been dry for months.

While drought episodes in this part of the Mediterranean are not uncommon, climate change is exacerbating conditions, said Sarai Sarroca, head of the Catalan meteorological agency. “Now the atmospheric cells that used to bring us rains have moved further north and we are getting southern Spain’s climate — this is how global warming is translating locally,” she said.

Meanwhile, the climate of southern Spain is now beginning to resemble North Africa. In the Andalusia region the reservoir basins that feed Málaga, a Mediterranean city about 970 kilometers (600 miles) south of Barcelona, are at 18% of their capacity. Earlier this month, the city announced it’s going to reduce water pressure in pipes for at least four months in an attempt to reduce consumption by 20%. If no rain falls next spring, it will require tanker ships to deliver water over the summer.

The wider Andalusia region has already spent €1.5-billion euros out of a €4-billion investment plan to improve and expand infrastructure to recycle and desalinate water, the region’s president Juanma Moreno said earlier this month. Water-related projects already make up 42% of public works undertaken by the regional government, which says the lack of water could impact its gross domestic product by 2% in 2024, given its dependency on tourism and agriculture.

Catalonia’s Mascort said there’s no region of Spain that can afford to withstand this kind of drought for much longer. “We need to stop thinking water is an infinite resource and start thinking about how we recycle each drop — indefinitely,” he said.