The State Meteorological Agency assured this week that, since last October 1, six "unprecedented" months had passed in terms of rain deficit and warm anomaly in the Valencian Community. In an "extremely dry and extremely hot" hydrological year, on March 28 the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) declared an emergency due to "extraordinary drought", a situation of which this Friday its technicians gave more details to, mainly, Inform the affected town councils on how to approach the management of water resources in this scenario.
The first issue to take into consideration is a drought plan, a mandatory document for urban supply systems that serve a population of more than 20,000 inhabitants. According to the CHJ, this document has not yet been presented by half of the large town councils in the region that have this obligation, practically all of which belong to the Valencian Community, except the cities of Cuenca and Teruel.
As explained by Laura Tanco, head of Technical Service of the Hydrological Planning Office of the CHJ, of the 68 obligated municipalities in the Júcar Basin, only 33 have sent the document. "About 50% have not submitted it even though there are some that we know are doing so." Of the communities and consortia of more than 100,000 inhabitants, 13 are obligated and seven of them have already presented it.
Likewise, he invited municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants to also establish a drought plan to update knowledge about their water resources. For example, he explained, the La Sènia City Council has presented its drought plan, even though due to its size it had no obligation.
Tanco addressed the reasons that led to the declaration of the exceptional situation due to extraordinary drought and recalled that "we are facing the second driest hydrological year in the last 33 years." And he put the municipalities on alert about what spring and summer could be like.
"The forecast for the coming months shows us that there is a lot of uncertainty about what will happen with the rain, but also the temperature is being very high for these dates. We are very close to the minimum," he said, while recommending going "with caution" given the current weather forecast for the coming weeks.
In reference to possible water restrictions, the Confederation reiterated yesterday that the supply, with exceptions, is assured and pointed out that all the measures proposed in the document have the objective of increasing the guarantee. "Restrictions are only contemplated for agricultural use, which is the main consumer of the demarcation, and which, in addition, can indirectly favor urban supply, because we increase the availability of the resource," explained Arancha Fidalgo, head of the Office of Planning.
