Barcelona City Council has launched a network of 22 tanker trucks that will supply groundwater to 239 cleaning vehicles and 57 irrigation vehicles in 26 points in the city. This is one of the new measures adopted to deal with the exceptional situation due to drought. The fleet is complemented by the 25 hydrants that usually work in Barcelona.
As the City Council announced a month ago, 100% of the water used for road cleaning comes from the ground, compared to 80% of previous dates. In the case of irrigation, the use of potable water has been reduced by half.
This new system, which was presented yesterday by the Councilor for Climate Emergency, Eloi Badia, allows this type of supply truck, with a capacity to store 20 cubic meters, to feed the smallest vehicles in the Parks and Gardens fleet, from of which the trees and shrub plantations are watered with a hose and the narrow streets are cleaned. The sprinkler system has been suspended and drip and manual remain. It should be remembered that watering the areas with grass and meadows has been interrupted as long as it does not rain and the restrictions due to the rain are maintained.
Barcelona has a total of 78 kilometers of groundwater network, which allows for the supply of around 5,000 cubic meters per day.
To create awareness about the need to save, Eloi Badia is in favor of councils publishing consumption figures. In the case of Barcelona, domestic consumption stands at an average of 106 liters per person per day, while that of the city (shops, industries, agriculture...) rises to 170, the councilor indicates. "In terms of tourism, we are working on a campaign for the visitor to be co-responsible, as he now spends twice as much as the city's neighbour", indicated the councilor.
The City Council increased, at the beginning of March, the measures to save drinking water after the Catalan Water Agency decreed the hydrological exceptionality of the Ter-Llobregat basin, which supplies the city, and limited consumption to 230 liters per inhabitant per day in the affected municipalities.
Barcelona is fed mainly by the basins of the Ter and Llobregat rivers for potable water and from the underground for non-potable water. Since 2008, when there was another remarkable episode of drought, the city intensified mechanisms to optimize flows. Even then, work began to intensify the use of ground water in 80% of street cleaning services, which has now increased to 100%, and in 18% of irrigation, which has doubled.
The Catalan capital consumes 49% of the total water in the metropolitan area. Household consumption of 106 liters per inhabitant per day is lower than the Spanish average, which is 134.
Also yesterday, Palamós City Council (Baix Empordà) announced the use of groundwater for road cleaning, on a permanent basis, to promote the saving of potable flows.
