Last year, after 40 consecutive months of rainfall below average, the Catalan authorities They decided to declare The emergency by drought. It wasn’t the first time he did in the previous two years, but as if it were. It became late and run over: therefore, during the following months we were accompanied by an endless vaodevil about Water restrictions, cistern ships, unfilling pools, river flows and transfers that They will never be done.
None of that took effect.
In recent months, many things had changed, but only one seemed safe: the Ter-Llobregat system, the water heart of the interior basins, was exhausted. The news Ahroa is that it seems that it has begun to change.
A fact that says everything. Sau’s swamp, in the heart of the system, has gone from 7.3% to 21.3% on Monday. It is not an isolated case: Susqueda went from 38.4 to 42% and Baells already exceeds 66%. As Carlos Garfella defendssince November 2022, the Government has never been so close to being able to lift the alert in the basins that provide water to 90% of the population of Catalonia.
After all, Ter-llobregat was at 14.7% capacity last year and now has exceeded 40%. Even the Alt Empordà, who had not seen abundant rains for three years, is receiving water.
And what does the Generalitat say? That It is still early To throw the bells on the fly. After evaluating the figures and possible courses of action, the interdepartmental commission of the drought has decided not to withdraw any measure and opt for a “prudent” approach.
And it is a successful decision. As explained by the Catalan Water Agency, from the prealert level it can be considered that The drought has sent. But, to tell the truth, if that remission is due only to a very specific episode of generalized rains, doing as everything has happened can be precipitated.
But, beyond prudence, is the drought ended or not? In this sense, We have good news: at a press conference Rubén del Campo, spokesman for AEMET explained that “the long -term drought, in which Spain entered at the end of 2023 and that still endured at the end of February, will also end up reversing most likely with what it is raining this March.”
Of the field He spoke of the meteorological drought and gives it almost for completed. But there are many types of drought. Or, in other words, there are many ways in which drought has damaged the country’s water systems. While the weather refers to a continued shortage of rainfall, the rest of droughts (hydrological, agricultural and socioeconomic) is understood as the direct consequence of the first in different facets of reality.
However, in the same way that the meteorological precedes the rest, its recovery as well. Now it remains to see how we get back to another new normality.
But let’s not be etching. Because although the future water is full of uncertainties, the improvement of the situation in Catalonia (which Until a week ago it seemed critical) It is the symbol we needed to face spring with some optimism.
Image | Joan Ggk | Copernicus
