Madrid (EFE) country, with greater intensity in large areas of the north, northeast of the peninsula and in Andalusia.
For the next ten days “there are no signs of large amounts of rain”, has advanced Rubén Del Campo, spokesman for Aemet, who stresses that this situation “exacerbates” the long-term meteorological drought that Spain is dragging, especially in the northeast from Castilla y León, the Basque Country, Navarra, northern Aragon, Catalonia, Andalusia and southern Castilla-La Mancha.
However, the drought is not an isolated event: in the last 60 years, mainland Spain has experienced three long-lasting and intense droughts (1982-1984, 1991-1996 and 2005-2009), with 2005 being the year with the least rainfall of the series studied (1961-2018). Other shorter episodes occurred between 1975 and 1976, 1987 and 1988, 2000 and 2001, and 2017 and 2018.
“Sometimes there may be areas that are now experiencing a very intense drought”, but for all of mainland Spain these have been the worst episodes to date, Del Campo specified.
Accumulated precipitation drops by almost 20%
The lack of rain also results in accumulated precipitation, which from October 1 to the first week of April yields 334 liters per square meter throughout Spain, that is, 19% less than the normal value for that period ( 411 liters).
By geographical areas, the accumulated amounts are below normal in the Cantabrian fringe, except in Galicia, in a large part of the eastern half of the Peninsula, in the southern third and in the Canary Islands, except in the southern half of Tenerife.
This situation, far from reversing, does not augur rosy forecasts: May, for the moment, “does not seem to be very rainy, and June never usually is” -Del Campo has observed- who stresses that in the face of summer, the models announce a season that is again “very hot, we don’t know if it was as hot as last year, but with temperatures well above normal”.
The water reserve, depleted
The lack of precipitation subtracts moisture from the soil, reduces river flows and diminishes the water reserve, which today amounts to 28,665 cubic hectometres, a figure far removed from the decadal average (37,445 hm3), according to data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, which detail that the water stored in the swamps is the lowest percentage for this week since 2011, only surpassed by 2022.
By autonomous communities, the highest levels of dammed water are in Galicia (80.1%) followed by Asturias (78.9%), the Basque Country (76.1%), La Rioja (73.9%), Castilla y León (70%), the Community of Madrid (68.3%), the Foral Community of Navarra (64.3), Aragón (58%), the Valencian Community (57.5%) and Extremadura (52.3%).
Below 50 percent of stored water are the communities of Cantabria (42.7%), Catalonia (42.4%), Castilla-La Mancha (40%), while in the last positions, and with less than 30 percent of dammed water, are found in Andalusia (29.5%) and the Region of Murcia (27.7%).
As a curious fact, it should be noted that, by province, Almería (12.9%), Barcelona (14.2%) and Córdoba (19.2%) currently have less dammed water.
Convened the National Drought Table
Del Campo has emphasized that the lack of rain also has repercussions in other aspects such as forest fires and agriculture. In this sector, and given the alarming situation in the Spanish countryside, the Ministry of Agriculture has convened the National Drought Table for next week.
In Andalusia, with the Guadalquivir basin at 25.5 percent of its capacity, the Andalusian government is finalizing a third drought decree, which will be launched in April.
For his part, the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has warned that the drought is already “the first problem in Catalonia” and has opted to “adapt the country” to this new scenario of water stress, which involves building new infrastructures such as desalination and water treatment plants in the medium term.
With regard to forest fires, the spokesman lamented the almost 52,000 hectares burned in Spain between January and April: “The fire situation has started very badly due to the drought and the large amount of organic matter that is so dry that we have in the forests” .
“In the last 16 years we have not had so many fires at this time of the year in Spain and, for the moment, a change in the trend in rainfall that could improve the situation is not clear,” he concluded.