María Ruiz I Granada, (EFE).- The drought withers Lorca’s “green that I love you green” and forces special actions to maintain unalterable emblematic spaces such as the Alhambra or Sierra Nevada. And prevent a stamp that asks for water from deteriorating.
In a 2023 that has been determined to contradict that of “in April, thousand waters” of the popular proverb. The Andalusian reservoirs are emptying and the administrations are filled with drought decrees. Extraordinary measures, irrigation bans and aid so that the lack of water does not become a lack of everything.
According to data from the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation (CHG) consulted by EFE, the reservoirs continue to drop their water reserves this week and are below 25% of their capacity. Which translates into about 8,000 cubic hectometres.
This overheated spring has been presented as the final straw for other environmental changes. And it has triggered the alarms in the face of a real risk of drought that could alter patterns fixed in the popular imagination. And wither that “green that I love you green” that seemed eternal in the verses of García Lorca.
The orchard of the Alhambra
That green is fundamental in the Alhambra and the Generalife, the historically most visited monumental complex in the country. Which is also an orchard that mixes almunias, a forest and the only medieval orchards in Spain associated with palatine enclosures that continue to be that, orchards with an organic harvest.
The Alhambra Board of Trustees has activated a series of measures for the sustainable management of its water resources and vegetation management. To mitigate the “serious consequences” of the drought.
As sources from the Nasrid monument have detailed to EFE, the Alhambra has improved its system for monitoring and controlling hydraulic infrastructures. He has opted for native species adapted to little water. And he has organized his gardens and orchards by hydrozones, spaces that share water needs so that not a drop of water is wasted.
The Alhambra has predators and parasitoids to control pests. What avoids the use of chemicals that also entails an expense of water. Just as their pools and ponds are free of chemicals such as chlorine or algaecides.
“These bodies of water constitute redoubts of biodiversity that strengthen the framework of resistance to the impacts of climate change on the set of ecosystems that surround the monument,” the Board of Trustees pointed out.
signs of stress
The same sources have recognized that the monumental complex presents specific “signs of stress”. That affect certain trees and hedges considered more vulnerable in which the Board is carrying out specific actions. Especially in outdoor areas near the monument such as the Dehesa del Generalife.
Eternal and recognized is also Sierra Nevada. That environmental emblem in which the Andalusian station managed by Sierra Nevada, the southernmost in Europe, is protected.
After a 2022-2023 season marked by little rainfall, Sierra Nevada has opted for prevention is better than cure, which in this case translates into storing snow.
accumulate snow
Cetursa, the company that manages the station, has tendered a contract to store snow from one season to the next, a system known as “Snow Farming” to shield 70 percent of the stored snow, about 15,000 cubic meters.
The proposal, which must comply with the environmental regulations of the Sierra Nevada Natural Area, has raised a storm of criticism from ecologists who see more harm than benefit from a measure that, in Spain, opened the Candanchú station.
This loss of white on the tops and green on the fields has halved the asparagus campaign in Andalusia, complicates the production of subtropical crops and languishes a Vega that asks for water in May to be used to irrigate almost 2,0000 hectares. regenerated from treatment plants, recycle to move forward. EFE