A Spanish region beloved by British expats has been forced to draw up more restrictions as it is experiencing the “most severe drought” it ever recorded.
People living in more than 200 municipalities part of Catalonia, northeastern Spain, will need to reduce their daily consumption of water from February 1. Upon announcing on Tuesday the region was days away from entering a drought emergency phase, the region said the daily water consumption limit will be at first set at 200 litres per person.
The limit will be lowered to 180 litres a day should the drought continue. Authorities warned people may be asked to further reduce their consumption levels to 160 litres a day if the drought doesn’t ease off. Measures appear to be far-reaching, with a ban on the use of ornamental fountains, watering of trees and gardens and filling of private swimming pools.
Public spaces are also to be affected, with sporting facilities being asked to cut their refilling of swimming pools unless they can economise elsewhere.
If local authorities deem necessary to tighten the restrictions further, these centres will be told to entirely ban the refilling and cleaning of pools and close their showers facilities.
The Catalan government said it isn’t just slashing the daily water consumption but is also working on long-term solutions such as the expansion and construction of regeneration infrastructures, water treatment plants and desalination plants, the Olive Press reports.
Prior to the regional government’s decision to enforce these restrictions, some officials had already started to reduce local water consumption.
On December 13, the local authorities in Girona announced they had scrapped the popular ice rink in the city for the first time since 2006. Setting up the rink, they explained, would have consumed some 48,000 litres of water – way too much given the ongoing crisis.
The decision, they said, had been taken “out of a sense of responsibility” and “to set an example” in the face of the “current serious climate situation”.
Catalonia, which in 2022 counted 24,689 British residents, has seen worrying record low rainfall levels over the past years.
Within the past three years, it rained 25 percent less, some 500 millimetres of water, than what it normally does in the region. The previous major drought recorded between 2005 and 2008 saw a deficit of 350 millimetres.
Sarai Sarroca, director of Catalonia’s meteorological service, had already expressed concerns in mid-November.
This drought, she said, “is the most severe” ever recorded in Catalonia, both “in terms of its persistence and intensity”. The expert added: “The worst thing is that there is no sign of the situation reversing.”
