Barcelona and whole Catalonia (north Spain) suffering under a serious drought since 60 years

Photos

Barcelona and whole Catalonia (north Spain) suffering under a serious drought since 60 years

see larger image

uploaded by Mistifarang

• 

  uploaded by Mistifarang | add comment

• 

  uploaded by Mistifarang | add comment

• 

  uploaded by Mistifarang | add comment

• 

  uploaded by Mistifarang | add comment

• 

  uploaded by Mistifarang | add comment

• 

  uploaded by Mistifarang | add comment

• 

  uploaded by Mistifarang | add comment

• 

  uploaded by Mistifarang | add comment

During my stay in Spain
(Catalonia in
the north) I got aware of the enormous problems concerning the natural
water-sources. That was in February this year. No rain and of course not enough
snow in the Pyrenees. Around March the
authorities started already spreading warnings concerning the (mis)use of water
and asked not to wash cars, sprinkle gardens and fill/top-up pools anymore on
voluntary base. Lots of reservoirs started emptying quickly. Big parts of Catalonia, Barcelona (the
2nd city in Spain)
included, started suffering of a drought which did not happen in 60 years.

Yesterday I was informed that it started raining during the
evening (location l’Escala, southern Bay
of Rosas) and it is still
raining, but it has to rain for many weeks until the problems have been solved:
the soil is too dry and the reservoirs are almost empty. Currently the lake of Boadella near Figueres has only 30% of
its normal content.

Farmers and citizens are prohibited to use water for other
reasons than consumption and the official rules concerning other use are
already a long time enforced.

As Spain, and of course also the Costabrava (Catalonia),
depends strongly of the tourism and as lots of house-owners are letting their
property (including pools) seasonal they have to comply to include a proper
working and maintained pool. As it is prohibited to fill or top-up these pools
one can order a water supplying lorry which costs Euro 900.--.

One can imagine that also the prices of vegetables, fruit
etc. are starting rocketing because those farmers cannot use sufficient water.

In the harbor of Barcelona is a heavy traffic now of water supplying tankers
(http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/13/spain.water.ap/)
from Tarragona  and France,
which causes of course rice of the consumers-price of the domestic water.  

These periods are causing also very high risks for
forest-fires which are quit normal in these regions and destroying lots and
lots of old forests and wild-live for many decades. These are caused for many
reasons: a lightning during a thunderstorm, apiece of glass, sparking
high-tension electricity supply with a broken isolator and last but not least
mentally ill people.

Catalonia has now lots of hugh open tanks, spread  through the forests to allow fire fighting helicopters
to top up near the disaster zone but these cannot be topped-up either anymore so
the helicopters are topping-up as before with water from lakes (even in the middle
of a village like a small camping-lake in l’Escala as long they are not yet empty) and even if really necessary from private pools when there
is sufficient space around.

The water scooping planes are also using the lakes but they
have to start using the sea, which in fact is prohibited but inevitable due to
the lack of fresh water. The use of seawater causes of course bad and long
lasting side-effects for the environment.