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What to do now that it can lift the drought restrictions

The magical figure is this: 365 hm3 of water. That is, the reservoirs of the Ter and Llobregat basins They have exceeded 60% of their reservations And that means that the conditions that allow the alert by drought are met.

While all looks are placed on April 8 (when the Intergovernmental Commission that can lift it), Barcelona prepares for one of the key decisions of the coming years: “How do we leave the water alarm without hypothetering our future?”

The most prolonged drought in modern history. At least in Catalonia. In fact, despite the rains of recent weeks, drought scars They continue to affect to large areas of the community. The best example is the hazelnuts of the Camp de Tarragona who are dying from the salinity of the wells and the lack of treatment plants.

… but it is reaching the end. The Ter reservoirs They accumulate 202 HM3 (50%) and those of Llobregat, 162 hm3 (76%). In both basins The limits to lift have been exceeded the alarm (180 in the first and 100 in the second). In addition, the flows have been recovered and, although one more drop of water falls throughout the year, the water supply for all 2025 has already been guaranteed.

It seems a matter of time for the basins to return to normal.

Prudence. That is the word that most It is repeated In the Government And it sounds good, but we have enough experience to know that prudence is not enough when we talk about water management.

For more than 30 years, prudence has always had a small print. As explained in Datadista“From the deep drought of the 1990s, each dry period has served to implement emergency measures or allow practices that were not eliminated when the rains returned, (but) were used to expand irrigation, increasing the problem of overexploitation and contamination of aquifers and the wetlands to which they feed.”

The most important decision for the future. A future that, despite months like this, It seems quite clear: There will be areas of the country where the distribution of rains will change radically throughout the year and others in which rainfall will fall.

Even though The predictions of recent days are met And April is also a more humid month than normal, drought will arrive. For now, infrastructure They will move on and management changes to win additional “31 HM3” too. The doubt is what these hectometers are going to dedicate themselves. And Catalonia must decide whether to be more prepared or, once again, will leave the problem to the following.

Image | Copernicus

In Xataka | In the middle of one of the most extreme droughts that are remembered, Catalonia has had an idea: to cut trees

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