Almería, (EFE).- The Minister of Sustainability, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, has said that the data on the levels of the reservoirs in Andalusia cannot be defined as “other than dramatic”.
He has highlighted that none of the basins reaches 30 percent of its capacity.
“Andalusia today has more than 500 cubic hectometres less than what we had the same week last year.”
He pointed out that in provinces such as Almería the situation is even “more worrisome”, with reservoirs such as Cuevas del Almanzora that do not reach 15%.
“We have been carrying a series of months in which it has barely rained and that has a series of consequences that we all notice,” he said during an institutional visit to the Gádor City Council (Almería).
Most evident in agriculture
In agriculture it is more evident, but also in the natural environments themselves that are suffering from this drought, or for industry and tourism,” he said.
Fernández-Pacheco has stressed that water is “essential” for Andalusia.
Given the state of the reservoirs, public administrations can only “invest, invest and invest in infrastructure that makes us more resistant to this situation of drought.”
The Board has already implemented two drought decrees.
“We are working on a third decree that will come out imminently, on a plan for solutions and works against the drought with a budget of 4,000 million euros.”
He has maintained that hydraulic infrastructures are the “engine” that drives public works in the community.
fires
He has referred to climate change and its effects such as the lack of rain and the high temperatures that are registered in an “unusual way for the date in which we find ourselves”.
He pointed out “that all this contributes to a greater risk of forest fires.
According to the counselor, the Infoca Plan of the Junta de Andalucía is prepared for “any contingency that may arise”.
But he recalled that last week he himself signed an order prohibiting all burning in forest environments to avoid risks.
The “main weapon that Andalusian society has to deal with forest fires is the responsibility of each and every one of us.”
“Good sense and common sense, collective responsibility is the main weapon.”
The Board will “continually review these measures to be prepared to make it difficult for fire in forest environments.” EFE
Web Edition: Violeta Gil
