The lack of rain due to climate change, the failure to carry out previously planned hydraulic works and insufficient investments have turned the Barcelona region into an area vulnerable to droughts, cyclically condemned to being one step away from domestic restrictions. One of Spain's economic engines, therefore, has feet of clay because the accumulation of unattended alerts has placed it at risk of not being able to properly guarantee a basic supply without mortgaging its future prosperity.
The Government already sees it as inevitable that the region of Barcelona and Girona will enter into emergency, which opens the door to restrictions in the domestic sphere, a declaration that will occur when the Ter and Llobregat reservoirs drop to 16%, and now their level covers 16.9%.
All of this is evidence that previous droughts did not serve to leave us with a lesson well learned.
In the 1990 drought, Barcelona already received a serious warning and was a few weeks away from implementing domestic restrictions; The same thing happened in the 2007-2008 episode, when the May rains prevented the worst; and now, again, after 36 months with practically no rainfall, all the alarms have gone off in the worst drought in history in Catalonia.
Agricultural, livestock and industrial sectors are the first to suffer the cuts.
The conclusion is clear. Barcelona cannot rely on the natural resources of climatology (rainwater) as the main guarantee of supply based on the flow of rivers and wells. Droughts have served these years as a lever to propose a supply that is less dependent on the natural rain cycle. For this reason, desalination and greater use of treated wastewater (to be regenerated and reused) appear as the alternative on which future solutions will pivot.
But this transition is being traumatic due to the repeated exercise of forgetfulness. After the rains of May 2008, which put an end to the drought, plans to avoid repeating mistakes came to nothing. Thus, the two new desalination plants promised by the Government for the period 2009-2015 (Blanes and Cunit-Foix) were not built; and they even “fell out” of the planning for the 2016-2021 cycle. Only recently, already in deep water, has Blanes entered the new programming (2022-2027).
After the construction of the El Prat desalination plant (with 85% financing from the EU), these necessary investments fell by the wayside, postponed in the decade of the investment drought, a time of full reservoirs, marked by the obsession of not increase the debt of the Catalan Water Agency, although austerity was later revealed to be too dangerous. In Catalonia, the principle that hydraulic works must be paid for by users (in the water bill) has been taken to the extreme, which has allowed public budgets to pass the buck while state solidarity (now recently recovered) has been blurred.
Meanwhile, water management rarely appears on the political agenda, and only emerges when the level of reservoirs drops so low that it forces administrations to sound the tomtom of domestic restrictions. But the alerts were previously launched due to the decrease observed in the river courses, exacerbated by an expansion of the forest that absorbs water without stopping.
But not even the maximum alert situations have served as a catalyst to achieve the pact and provide security and stability to the supply. And it has been in the most acute phases of the water crises in which Catalonia has looked in the mirror of a divided country.
Four professional associations in Catalonia (Enginyers Industrials, de Camins, Agrònoms and Economistes) have once again raised the proposal to interconnect the supply network of the Consorci d'Aigües de Tarragona with that of the Ter-Llobregat, as an emergency work taking advantage of the flows that Camp de Tarragona does not take advantage. The proposal is not new. Given the severity of the 2008 drought, the central government agreed to authorize an extension of the Ebro mini-transfer to Barcelona (and even awarded the work). But with the rains of May of that year, the project was stranded. Its supporters now remember that if this work had been carried out, the Barcelona region would already have a “tap” available that would alleviate the drought.
But the interconnection of the Ebro and Ter-Llobregat networks has been ruled out by the Secretary of Climate Action, Anna Barnadas, doubting that the Ebro basin is surplus (with the Mequineça reservoir at 80%) and replying that "a fixed structure" could lead to a continuous transfer of water from the Ebro to Barcelona. "We reject interconnection; the priority must be to recover and take advantage of the Besòs water", says Susana Abella, from the Ebro Defense Platform.
Water emergencies usually give rise to a pattern of debate that rescues from the trunk of memories the ideas that emphasize water saving (modernization of networks, avoiding leaks, taking advantage of stormwater flow...); but that happens when the Administration already maintains deals with shipping companies for the transportation of water by boat (as happened in 2008). But then all this goes hand in hand with the emergence of urban projects that are incompatible with dwindling resources. Therefore, the fear persists that the amnesia will be repeated.
Making drinkable or reusable water is the new watchword. In the 23 metropolitan municipalities served by Aigües de Barcelona, 33% of the resources consumed are already from desalination, and 25% come from the El Prat regenerative plant that produces reusable water (the rest is from rivers and wells). All these unconventional flows have prevented the emergency from coming forward. It will be necessary to improve purification, evaluate the demand of large consumers, adjust consumption and recover aquifers contaminated by livestock waste. And also convert the Besòs area into another “tap” for drinking and reusable water. In short: look less at the sky, and focus more on the ground and the water factories.
