If in France the expression says "In April, do not discover yourself by a thread", in Spain one exclaims "Abril, aguas mil" - "In April, full of water". But the saying did not prove true at the beginning of 2023, quite the contrary: not only was this month of April the driest ever recorded in the country, but several cities also experienced heat records for the period. On Thursday, April 27, at 17 p.m., the thermometer rose to 38.7 ° C in Cordoba and 37.8 ° C in the province of Seville, Andalusia, according to readings from the State Agency of Meteorology.
After a winter, also abnormally dry and hot, inhabitants, politicians and scientists were counting on this month of April to alleviate the drought that is hitting the country. "The situation is particularly alarming in the regions of Catalonia and Andalusia where water reservoirs are at less than 25% of their capacity," said Jorge Olcina, head of the climatology laboratory at the University of Alicante. In both regions, local governments imposed restrictions at the end of February: watering gardens and filling swimming pools are prohibited and agricultural irrigation has been reduced.
In the village of Jaén, in the heart of Andalusia, thousands of parishioners went so far as to organize a procession on Monday, May 1, to implore rain with El Abuelo, a statue of Christ carrying his cross. The latter had not left the basement of the Church since 1949.
"And the rest of Spain is not spared. The state of reserves is increasingly worrying in the regions of Valencia, Murcia, Castile-la-Mancha and Extremadura. The available water stock has fallen below 40% of total capacity," Olcina said.
"Spain is in a situation of mega-drought, it is bearing the brunt of the effects of the drought of the summer of 2022 and the dry winter that followed," says Serge Zaka, lecturer and specialist in agro-climatology. "The state of the soil and water reserves is broadly in line with what we usually see in August. It's totally unprecedented."
Europe's vegetable garden in danger
In this country often nicknamed "the vegetable garden of Europe" since it exports a large part of its agricultural production, farmers are the first victims of this historic drought.
According to the Agriculture Committee (Coag), one of the main agricultural unions, 60% of cereal crops, not irrigated, are currently "asphyxiated" by the lack of rainfall. "These are cereals planted in the fall and harvested in the spring, such as wheat and barley," says Serge Zaka. "Due to lack of water, however, their development was halted before it matured. So we won't be able to harvest them."
"The cultivation of olive, pistachio and almond trees will also certainly decrease. Because even if these plants are used to dry climates, they suffer from too high temperatures," he continues. "On the fruit and vegetable side, on small farms working without irrigation, farmers try to postpone sowing as much as possible while waiting for more favourable conditions. But the more time passes, the more likely it is to cause them to skip the season."
"The huge irrigated crops in southern Spain should be spared a little more, but faced with the lack of water and the restrictions put in place, their farmers will certainly also be forced to lower their yields," concludes Serge Zaka. In short, only crops close to the coast, and watered with water from desalination plants, could finally manage to do well.
[Thread] The Spanish drought is a never-ending nightmare for farmers. The loss of 3.5 million hectares of cereals is not a fable (333x size of Paris). The worst? We were already in drought in 2022.
The agricultural plains of Madrid.
↙️2022 & ↘️2023
1/5#Sequia pic.twitter.com/B3IwBKHrHJ
— Dr. Serge Zaka (Dr. Zarge) (@SergeZaka) May 2, 2023
To help farmers, the Spanish government has already announced a series of tax boosts, including a 25% reduction in income tax, to benefit 800,000 professionals.
The limits of an intensive model
"This drought shows us the limits of the Spanish agricultural model, which is based on a false impression of water abundance," said Julio Barea, head of water issues for Greenpeace Spain. Today, the sector alone accounts for 80% of the country's fresh water consumption.
Faced with the recurrent lack of water, the country installed hundreds of dams and infrastructure for diverting water from rivers from the 1950s. In total, according to the Dams and Dams Society, there are about 1,200 – a record in Europe – installed mainly in the southern half of the country. Enough to feed intensive crops – by far the most greedy – the fields of small farmers but also the activities of tourism professionals.
"This infrastructure has encouraged us to draw again and again, without moderation, on our reserves to support this irrigation-based agriculture and earn this title of 'vegetable garden of Europe'," the activist continues. "But at what cost? We have placed our groundwater in a state of water stress. Today, adding the increasingly visible consequences of global warming, this model is absolutely no longer sustainable."
Aridification
All the more, according to Patricio Garcia-Fayos, director of the Research Center on Desertification (CIDE) in Valencia, that this overexploitation of groundwater, coupled with climate change, accelerates "the desertification of Spain."
"Because of climate change, droughts are becoming more frequent, more intense, and temperatures are rising. This helps to dry out vegetation, the soil loses its fertility and its ability to store water. And this phenomenon accelerates as soon as we add the overexploitation of groundwater," he explains.
"It is therefore essential to fight against climate change and at the same time learn to manage water better, otherwise a large part of Spain will become, in a few years, desert." An alert already given by the UN, which estimates that nearly 75% of the territory is now in the process of desertification.
Beyond this vicious circle, this desertification also increases the risk of fires, dead plants being perfect fuels. In 2022, Spain was the European country most affected by forest fires, with nearly 500 fires that ravaged more than 300,000 hectares, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis).
In 2023, the authorities already count about 40,000 hectares of scorched land favored by its high temperatures, dry soils and warm winds. The Meteorological Agency has already issued an alert for "extreme risk of fire" over a large part of the territory.
"We must transform our vision of water"
Faced with these warning signals, all specialists draw the same conclusion: "We urgently need to adapt to this new, more arid climate and rethink all our water management," insists Jorge Olcina, who calls for the establishment of a national hydrological plan that would draw up a plan for water until 2050. "Building water reservoirs no longer makes sense: we no longer have water to reserve. Instead, we need to develop new uses such as wastewater reuse and, above all, have a more thoughtful use."
"Let's reduce irrigated areas," says Julio Barea. "There needs to be real political will. We need to stop maintaining a mirage and using water that doesn't exist."
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