Barcelona (EFE).- The City Council of Calafell (Tarragona) has begun to monitor with drones that residents do not fill their private pools, an activity prohibited by the Generalitat due to the drought situation in Catalonia.
In this Tarragona municipality there are 2,500 private swimming pools, an amount that the City Council says is “unaffordable” to control on foot, from the street, that they do not fill up, with the added difficulty of visibility, since they are usually protected with walls, gates or vegetation.
For this reason, the council has started daily flights with drones that take images “to make an inventory of the swimming pools that are empty” and to monitor in successive days “if they are filled or not and, if they are filled, proceed to the corresponding sanction”, explained the Councilor for Urban Ecology, Aron Marcos, in a video posted on the profile of the Calafell City Council on Instagram.
Calafell: water exceptionality
In one of the municipalities in Tarragona with the most pools per inhabitant, refilling could be determined by water consumption, Marcos has admitted, but with drones the system is faster and more efficient, he has maintained.
Calafell is one of the almost 500 municipalities in Catalonia in a situation of exceptional water supply, in which, among other restrictions, it is forbidden to fill private swimming pools, irrigation is limited to the survival of trees, and 230 liters per inhabitant per day must not be exceeded, including both private consumption and commercial and economic activities in each town.