With more than half of Catalonia on the verge of an emergency due to lack of rain, a fact that will translate into new and more severe restrictions for some five million inhabitants very soon, some 30,000 residents of Banyoles and four other municipalities in the Pla de l region. 'Estany are one of the few exceptions on the drought map.
A small blue spot indicates that these localities are in a normal phase, which in practice means that they do not have any restrictions in daily consumption, nor in industry or the agricultural sector.
Despite the fact that, according to data from local meteorologist Enric Estragués, 2023 has been the year with the least precipitation in the last half century and that the area has received about half as much rain as the average of the last 73 years, the Estany de Banyoles, which supplies water to these five municipalities, remains at optimal levels.
The particular drought thermometer in this area is currently 19 centimeters below ground level. "It is not an alarming level, the absolute record since I have records was in 1967, with 32 centimeters below ground zero, it was another period of rampant drought," explains Estragués, who began making his measurements in 1965.
Sources from the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) explain that the area that drinks from this lake has never before been in an exceptional or emergency situation. For that to happen, the water would have to drop 90 centimeters and if it did by one meter, it would fully enter emergency, the phase that is about to fall for the municipalities that depend on the Ter-Llobregat system.
To get an idea of what that means, for every centimeter that the Estany drops, 12 million liters are lost, according to the mayor of Banyoles, Miquel Noguer. Therefore, until reaching zero level, there would currently be a lack of about 240 million liters of water in that large lake basin formed millions of years ago.
This large mass of water, more than 2 kilometers long and 775 meters wide, occupies a volume of 16.12 cubic hectometers, the equivalent of three times the maximum capacity of the Riudecanyes reservoir, for example.
Many wonder how Banyoles can continue to be in a normal phase if the rainfall in the last three years has been rather scarce. In 2023 there were 448 liters per m2, far from the 830 average accumulated since 1950. The answer must be sought in the calcareous mountains of Alta Garrotxa, which supply much of the water stored in the lake.
"The rainwater circulates through a hypothetical underground network of channels until it reaches the lagoons and the lake of Banyoles, located at 175 meters above sea level," explain Miquel Coma and Joan Gratacós, in the book L'Estany de Banyoles. . “The time it takes for water to fall as rain in Alta Garrotxa and come out through a lagoon is variable, from a few months to thirty years,” they add.
The mayor of water, Albert Tubert, explains that the Estany is also fed by rainwater and the water that enters from the streams, while the irrigation ditches that cross the entire city "are its natural drainage." These are channels that regulate the flow of water.
Another of the curiosities of the Estany is that its waters are a communal asset. It means that they are property of the neighbors, and the person in charge of administering and managing them is the City Council. For practical purposes this means that the ACA does not have the power to dictate restrictions in this area, but falls on the City Council.
“Just because we are in a normal phase does not mean that we are not responsible for daily water consumption, the population is aware of the situation,” explains the mayor.
The data seems to agree. According to ACA statistics, the average consumption per inhabitant per day in this area in December was 231 liters per inhabitant per day. This is about 30 liters less than what was used ten months before.
