Global Trends and Water Policy in Spain

Abstract

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Spatial and temporal analysis of droughts in the Iberian Peninsula (1910–2000)

“…Drought analysis in this area is important because droughts cause significant economic losses (Morales et al, 2000;Iglesias et al, 2003), and urban, tourist and agricultural water demands have increased considerably in recent years (Albiac et al, 2003;Del Moral et al, 2003), making the economy and the society more vulnerable to droughts. Moreover, the predicted precipitation decrease in the Mediterranean region ;…”

“…For this reason, the analysis of short temporal scales, indicative of agricultural drought (Yamoah et al, 2000), is currently of little interest. Meanwhile, the increase in tourist activities and irrigation in the Iberian Peninsula have raised water demands, making hydrological droughts more damaging to the society and the economy, producing water restrictions and losses on irrigated land (Morales et al 2000;Del Moral et al, 2003). For these reasons, a large temporal unit of analysis (12 months) was favoured for this paper, since it is more suited to monitor hydrological than agricultural droughts (Hayes et al, 1999;Komuscu, 1999).…”

Drought variability and change across the Iberian Peninsula

“…For this reason, the analysis of short time scales, indicative of agricultural drought, is currently of less interest. Meanwhile, the increase in tourist activities and irrigation in the Iberian Peninsula have raised water demands for life, making hydrological droughts more damaging to the society and the economy, producing water restrictions and losses on irrigated land (Morales et al, 2000 andDel Moral et al, 2003). In this way, Lorenzo-Lacruz et al, (2012) analyzed the streamflow evolution in the whole Iberian Peninsula between 1945 and 2005, providing evidence of a general decrease in river flows between 1-3% in the Iberian Peninsula over the last 60 years for both regulated and non-regulated rivers.…”

Public Attitudes toward Water Management Measures and Droughts: A Study in Southern Spain

“…This trend runs parallel to fatigue for the traditional hydraulic paradigm, and is especially connected to economic and technical features, which make it very difficult to further regulate the flow of Andalusian rivers, as well as to trends of a global nature [9]. Despite this, the administration has continued with the construction and planning of new reservoirs in Andalusia, as reflected in the hydrological plans (i.e., Arenoso, Casasola, La Breña II, Los Melonares, Siles, Alcolea, Coronada, Guadarranque, Gibralmedina, etc.).…”

“…In Spain, for example, the supersession of traditional water policies faces substantial obstacles [7][8][9], despite the advances achieved since the enactment of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in 2000 [10][11][12][13]. The consolidation of the productivist approach which has dominated water management in Spain for decades must be contextualized against a background of infrastructure-based interventionist policies.…”