Madrid (EFE).- Water, an elemental resource for the survival of any species in nature, does not reach more than 2,000 million people and is increasingly scarce in various areas of the planet, which creates problems of water deficit and food security, two aspects that are at the center of the global climate crisis and within the framework of Water Day, which is celebrated on March 22.
This celebration coincides with the 2023 United Nations Water Conference in New York, between March 22 and 24, where the right to water and sanitation will be addressed, as included in the Sustainable Development Goal -SDG6-, and other related issues such as health, sustainable development, climate, resilience, environment or cooperation.
The professor at the University of Seville (US), Leandro del Moral Ituarte, explained to EFE that in Spain the consumption of water in agriculture for irrigation has increased in recent decades, currently reaching areas close to 4 million hectares.
This sector is in great demand, he maintains, and reaches 80%; but in some basins, such as the Guadalquivir, this demand rises to 87% of the available water, that is, the water that is extracted from rivers, bodies of water and groundwater and that is controlled.
The US professor and member of the New Water Culture Foundation, who will participate in the Water Conference, has stressed that the demand for water continues to grow, and although there has been a great modernization of irrigation systems, the extension of that acreage has produced no real savings.
He has also highlighted the differences with urban spaces, such as in the metropolitan area of Madrid or Barcelona, where urban, residential and industrial consumption reaches a greater proportionality, but which in Spain in general stands at 10%, Corresponding more than 80% to irrigation and another 4 or 5% to other uses.
To this is added the already perceptible effects of climate change, with the increase in temperatures that affects the water in two ways, according to the US professor. First, it increases the evaporation of precipitation and, therefore, reduces the useful rainfall, the runoff that produces blue water, the water that enters the reservoirs, the rivers, which infiltrates and recharges the aquifers.
On the other hand, this increase in temperature produces a greater demand from the plants, a greater evapotranspiration, with which there is less water and the plantations require and will continue to require more water progressively.
He stressed that this problem of temperature and water scarcity is characteristic of the climate in Spain, with irregular rainfall and frequent droughts, but climate change accentuates these already existing characteristics.
All of this causes stress and scarcity situations to arise as a result of both factors, but without forgetting the spiral of demand that in some places does not stop and is even increasing significantly, with new crops, new productive strategies, subtropical crops , such as avocado or mango that consume a lot of water, which are added to traditional crops.
In addition, according to Del Moral Ituarte, there is a generalized overexploitation of groundwater, they are the aquatic ecosystems that are suffering the most, although surface waters are also overexploited, and he has ensured that great impacts are being caused on the aquatic environment and on the own scarcity of water.
Overexploitation is manifested in the absence of flows, with minimum ecological flows that the regulations require to establish, but they are very meager and sometimes are not even met, he warned.
As regards groundwater, he explained, where the expression on exploitation is more commonly applied, it materializes in a reduction in groundwater levels, drying of sources and springs, causing salinization in the case of coastal aquifers and the loss of quality of quality.
In his opinion, in the case of groundwater, the lack of control is greater than that of surface water, because surface water has historically been in the public domain and although it has had very lax control, it has been officially controlled by the administrations , which are competent, because the rivers have been in the public domain since the 19th century.
However, he has stated, surface waters have been private waters until 1985 and there is no tradition of control by the Administration, they are also more difficult to control because they extend throughout the territory.
The WWF Spain Water Program expert, Rafael Seiz, explained that the effects of climate change in Spain point to greater uncertainty, both in the rainfall regime and in the occurrence of droughts and floods.
However, the scarcity of resources is a water management challenge, which is exacerbated by climate uncertainty.
This situation, which is becoming more and more frequent, intensifies the problems in distributing resources adequately and forces a change in the relationship with rivers, wetlands and aquifers if the aim is to be more resilient and adapt to climate change.