This article was originally published by the Elcano Royal Institute, December 2024.
The flash flooding that hit the region of Valencia last month, killing 239 people, would seem to suggest Spain does not suffer from a lack of water. In some places, more rain fell in a day than in a whole year. The natural disaster which led to the Valencia floods is known as a ‘DANA’ (depresión aislada en niveles altos), and not representative of Spain as a whole. DANA weather systems are formed when an area of low pressure gets ‘cut off’ from the main flow of the jet stream. As a result, instead of moving through a region relatively quickly, they get blocked over the same area producing persistent rainfall for days. In stark contrast, other parts of Spain have recently suffered prolonged bouts of drought. In November 2023 nine million people, one fifth of the population, faced water restrictions.
Both the tragedy in Valencia and persistent droughts have brought home the rising threat of climate change on planetary security for which Spain, like so many other countries, is unprepared. Despite the torrential rain from the DANA, Spain’s total rainfall was 40% lower than normal for November. A report, published in November 2024 by the environmental consultant OIKOS, sounds alarm bells on Spain’s ‘increasing water stress’, which at 43% is well above Germany’s 34% and Italy’s 30%, but far lower than Israel’s dramatic 110%.
Among other problems, Spain is a laggard in using non-conventional sources for water, uses inefficient infrastructure which leads to up to 25% of drinking water loss (well above the 10% best practice target) and features water prices under the European average, encouraging wasteful and inefficient use. Agriculture is also a huge and inefficient user of water in Spain with the more economic drip irrigation technique is underutilised.
Water management suffers, as do so many other issues, from political polarisation and the lack of cooperation and coordination between Spain’s four levels of government (central, regional, provincial and municipal). The authorities’ initial response to Valencia’s deadly floods was woefully inadequate. The civil protection agency (Agencia Valenciana de Seguridad y Respuesta a las Emergencias or AVSRE), which is overseen by the Popular Party-led regional government of Valencia, only sent out a text message warning residents hours after the first floods were reported. Help from the Socialist-led central government, which said it was up to the regional government to ask for what it needed, was slow to come in the first days. While an army of volunteers stepped into the gap, political opponents wasted no time in starting a blame game.
Water governance clearly needs to be improved. OIKOS calls for the creation of a national water authority in order to better coordinate national, regional and municipal policies. It is to be hoped that the idea will not fall on deaf ears.
These are extracts from an article by William Chislett, December 2024. Read the full article via the link here.
Photo credit: Jorge Franganillo/Flickr