The first thing that surprises the big panel that presides over the operational control center of Aigües de Barcelona in the Catalan capital; it is a world map on which the movement of arrows with threatening flickering that are directed from various places on the planet to the place where we are. Instinctively our gaze is directed towards Russia, from where many arrows depart.
The world map shows the incessant arrival of cyber threats and visualizes the work of the applications that monitor attacks against the center's technological infrastructure. "Every week we have an average of 13,000 attacks", say the Aigües technicians. The statement suggests that it is urgent and convenient to reformulate the cliché. In reality, "water is a scarce good... and besieged". If an attack took effect, "in 10 minutes we could operate from another alternative center", they reassure us.
From the panel (6 meters long and almost 3 meters high), the central totem of this glazed plant, the supply networks managed by the company are monitored. He is her Big Brother. These monitors monitor 4,700 km of the drinking water supply network, 1.5 million daily records and 5,600 sensors distributed throughout the network in 23 metropolitan municipalities (three million inhabitants).
Another marker indicates that water consumption in the 23 metropolitan municipalities is 5.8 hm3 per day, an amount lower than 15 years ago, when demand reached 7 hm3. Before cyber threats arrived, the people of Barcelona already knew the siege of droughts and learned to save water. Result: domestic consumption is now 105 liters per inhabitant per day, very close to the minimum of 100 liters recommended by the WHO.
Another graph shows a demand forecast curve for the next 24 hours, obtained with the data from the sensors present in the network, and since it is updated every hour; meanwhile, almost superimposed, another curve appears showing how actual consumption matches the forecast.
The Big Brother panel is also in charge of planning and executing possible domestic water restrictions if the drought worsens. The water company has a device ready to reduce the pressure of the supply if an emergency situation were to arise and it was necessary to act in coordination with the metropolitan authorities.
The Government's special drought plan now gives municipalities 230 liters per person per day for all uses; but if it entered a second or third stage of the emergency, it would be necessary to tighten the belt even more, to close limits and even below the minimum consumption. In this scenario, Aigües chooses to reduce supply pressure, instead of making schedule cuts. The argument is that "the large supply networks are not prepared to be constantly working with cuts and interruptions of supply because it would end up causing a number of breakdowns in the network which, in the end, would be worse than the cure than the disease ”, say their technicians. "We have a very prepared network. Managing the water pressure instead of making cuts is much less damaging to the networks." However, before reducing the pressure, many other savings measures would be applied, along the lines of those that councils are already adopting.
The high degree of monitoring and digitization of the service would allow an adjustment to be made to all the drives. However, lowering the pressure would not have a homogeneous impact on all citizens, because high floors would in any case be the "most affected". However, "sensitive customers identified by the councils will in all cases have guaranteed supply", they stress. On the other hand, small municipalities lacking such sophisticated systems would be at risk of time cuts in this scenario.
The panel indicates that the drought is so intense that every last drop of water must be used. Aigües de Barcelona aims to capture almost all the flow carried by the Llobregat as it passes through the Sant Joan Despí station. We drink almost all the water flow released from the reservoirs. The Llobregat transports 3,000 liters per second and we are taking 2,760 liters per second from the river. Only a few small streams near Sant Joan Despí guarantee that the river carries a minimum flow at its mouth.
Before the drought, more than 60% of the water consumed in these 23 municipalities were resources of the Llobregat and the Ter; now, on the other hand, the rivers contribute less than 20%.
Desalination and reuse are now the central pivot of the service (58%).
Desalination accounts for 33% of demand, while 25% of the water we drink is reused flows from the El Prat regeneration station (which, once treated, are pumped upstream to be discharged to Molins and made potable in Sant Joan Despí station). The rest is water from wells (23%) and rivers (19%). "If we had not had desalination and reuse, we would now have domestic restrictions", say the technicians.
Since we have less water in the rivers, the reused flow, which sometimes requires less treatment, is an ideal resource for agricultural uses, street cleaning, garden irrigation or for the industry of the Free Zone, and so that drinking water is saved. For this reason, Aigües asks the Government (in charge of planning) that, once the drought is over, reused water will continue to be the structural element of the supply. "Its use must be the new normal in the future".
