Andalusia’s Severe Drought Crisis: Water Shortages Grip the Region

Andalusia begins to get used to the stamp of drought. In the north of Córdoba, where in spring they already saw how the first reservoir in Spain was emptied, some 72,000 people have not drunk tap water for four months.

The alternative proposed by the administration, the water from the La Colada reservoir, was found to be unfit for consumption. So the neighbors go to the tanker truck, fill their jugs and return home with the greatest number of liters possible..

The Andalusian community is the one that is suffering the most from the drought and expects the problem to worsen in the coming weeks.

The Andalusian reservoirs stand at 21.7% of their capacity, according to the latest data from the Ministry for Ecological Transition, which notes a new decline in recent days. At the moment, up to 120 Andalusian municipalities, almost all in rural areas, have limitations on the use of water.

If there is no rainfall, the restrictions will increase after the summer and it is inevitable that weariness will begin to be felt in some sectors of the population.

On the coast of La Janda, in the province of Cádiz, the problem has been dragging on for years and is at its worst. Hundreds of unlicensed homes and businesses extracted water through wells, in many cases illegal, until the drought left them salinated or empty.

The alternative was a water transport company that was making gold in the midst of a drought, although it has recently received a lock from the administration due to the health risk posed by the uncontrolled supply in several of the fashionable Cadiz destinations.

The response of businesses and residents, some of whom have been left without water, has been to call demonstrations in front of the affected town halls and in the Delegation of the Junta in Cádiz.

To avoid this type of problem, the Ministry of Health has issued a circular to establish the bases that will allow the regulation of supply businesses in Cuba. Until now they were in a legal vacuum, but these companies depend more and more scattered or off-line coastal areas. The collaboration of the municipalities will be essential.

In total, in Andalusia there are up to 45,000 homes without a license, a problem dragged on for years that the Andalusian Government intends to solve with the new Law List.

Córdoba, Huelva and Málaga, the most affected

In any case, many Andalusian municipalities have gotten used to seeing tanker trucks on their streets this summer. Town halls such as Casariche, in Seville, have installed tank trucks and provisional tanks so that residents can fill “bottles and buckets” and have water at home during supply cuts, which are increasingly widespread.

In the Sierra de Huelva, there are towns with up to 11 hours of supply interruptions. They almost always take place at night, although in some cases, especially on weekends, they can also take place in the afternoon. The supply problems and the contamination of the aquifers, with reserves “practically depleted”, place Huelva as one of the most affected provinces.

In Malaga, for its part, there are up to thirty municipalities with restrictions. Almost 80% of the population is suffering measures of some kind, although the worst situation is in the Axarquía, a region where the Junta has proposed several hydraulic works, with the Viñuela reservoir at 8% of its capacity.

Vélez-Málaga, with more than 80,000 inhabitants, is the most populous Andalusian municipality among those affected by the water cuts. In the coastal zone, as in the entire Andalusian coast, many municipalities have chosen to cut off the water in showers or footbaths on the beaches.

Granada and Almería are free of supply cuts for the moment, while in Jaén there have only been occasional cuts in two towns. Future saving measures will depend on the drought management committees, dependent on both the central government and the Board, which will be held after the summer.

In these weeks there have been no extraordinary calls and sources from the regional administration rule out an urgent meeting in the coming weeks. In addition, they celebrate that, except for the difficulties in the most affected municipalities, in most of the territory the supply has been guaranteed even in the face of tourism growth.

The PP has been demanding more investments in hydraulic infrastructures from the central government, highlighting the actions of the regional Executive in recent months. In fact, the Board has come to propose the redirection of European funds for this type of works, which would reduce the impact of the drought in the most affected regions.