The Aquifer of the Plana de València is a ‘deposit’ of more than 900 square kilometers capable of storing about 2,800 cubic hectometers of water. Not only is it more capacity than any of the community reservoirs; It is that, indeed, it has more water than them. And there is a good reason for this: it is not used.
València’s area with its two and a half million inhabitants They are supplied almost entirely of the surface water of the Júcar-Turia system. Therefore, even in the worst moments of climate crisis, the aquifer has remained in good backs to the needs of the city.
Now, the City Council wants to change that.
For “the treasure of Valencia”. A few days ago, Maria José Catalá, the mayor of the city, presented an ambitious plan to build four new wells with their own water treatment plants. The idea is to increase the ability to extract and power the water from the aquifer. In fact, according to the project, with this infrastructure you could get about 1,100 liters per second.
To dimension these figures, it is best to keep in mind that, right now, the city’s extractive capacity would be in about 300 liters per second.
And not even enough. After all, always according to EMIVASA (The Valencian water company), the city needs about 1,500 liters per second of continuous drinking water to ensure the supply. That is, to self -ability from the aquifer, València would need to quintuplicate the maximum that today can be extracted from the subsoil.
“I hope it never gets used”said Mayor Catalá and, perhaps without knowing it, put his finger on one of the greatest risks of this type of infrastructure. On the one hand, from the political point of view, it seems irresponsible not to exploit the resources we have within our reach (especially in times of pressing water crisis).
But it will be used … On the other, from an ecological point of view, the temptation to resort to the aquifer more than those recommended will always be on the table. Pure Say Law: If we have water available, all incentives will conspire to spend it.
And no, it is not mere speculation: it is the historical experience. As They point in the Datadista For years: decades of “emergency measures” in front of drought has only ended up serving to “expand irrigation, increasing the problem of overexploitation and contamination of aquifers and wetlands.”
We have shown to have a surprising capacity to find excuses about using them whenever water appeared available. Not only that WWF Spain revealed in 2019 that The four most important aquifers in the country have been sheared for years; the thing is, According to the reports of the Geological and Mining Institute“For decades, salinization of Mediterranean and insular Spanish coastal coastal aquifers have been known.”
Despite this, “only in a few cases this situation is well managed.”
The big question … It is whether it can be managed well (if marine intrusion can be avoided or if there is even a “rational use” of it) and, therefore, the project is now of the Júcar Hydrographic Conference.
After all, this will be just one of the much dilemmas that we will have to
Image | Ian Preston
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