Lessons learnt from the impact of the neglected role of groundwater in Spain's water policy

Abstract

Spain is the most arid country in Europe. Issues and conflicts related to water management are more relevant to the country's development than that of in other European countries. In July of 2001 the Spanish Parliament enacted the Law of the National Water Plan. This Plan has induced considerable controversy among diverse social sectors and lobbies: political parties, farmers associations, large construction firms, conservation groups, scholars, and others. The real role of groundwater in Spain was practically ignored in the initial proposal for the National Water Plan (NWP). The approved bill included a series of provisions about groundwater which, if they are enforced, will make it difficult to maintain some old paradigms. One of these is the need to continue the large subsides to build large hydraulic structures. One such structure is the aqueduct of the Ebro River, designed for the transfer of water to several Mediterranean regions. Spain is the country-except four small countries- with the largest number of large dams per person. It is also the country of the European Union which uses the lowest proportion of groundwater for urban water supply. This may be the result of the central government's policy in the nineteenth Century which restricted the use of groundwater as the source of supply for Madrid. This policy later spread trough out the rest of the country. Nevertheless, farmers do not usually follow the government's paradigms and during the last 30 to 40 years they have considerably increased the use of groundwater for irrigation. Today about one million hectares, out of a total of 3.5 million hectares, are irrigated with groundwater. The economic value of the crops and the employment generated by the use of groundwater irrigation is higher than that from surface water irrigation. It can be said that groundwater irrigation has produced significantly “more crops and jobs per drop”. Most of this spectacular agricultural development has been made with scarce planning and very limited control by the government water authorities. This has induced legal and ecological chaos in a few regions. The National Water Plan is a blend of new and old paradigms. The lobbies of the followers of the old paradigms are still pewerful and it is presently difficult to foresee which will be the practical results of this plan.