watering Archives - usatoday24

Valencia has found a way to prevent fires like someone watering a garden: huge fire cannons

July 10, 2026 by usatoday24

Like someone watering a garden. 10,000 liters per minute at 42 meters away. The Valencian Community has a unique weapon to fight fire: fire cannons that are activated as soon as the environmental sensors detect the slightest outbreak of fire. And these sentinels are armored to entire neighborhoods. In the Devesa The Salerin Valencia city and under red notice due to high temperatures, eight fixed towers have been set up on Gola del Pujol avenue and a set of portable cannons that move through the natural park. The municipal forecast is to reach about 40 towers in 2031. The system began in the Colonia Santa Marina urbanization (Carcaixent), where the Forest Fire Defense System (SIDEINFO) already installed similar cannons in 2006 for collective defense against a neighborhood surrounded by mountains. Entrusted to Neptune. Guardian is the name of this project and it has no other purpose than to serve water cannons to create “green barriers” around key developments. The objective now is to expand in areas such as Masia de Traver, Els Pous, La Canyada (north and south) and Valencia La Vella. In Torrent, for example, the Vedat has been protected for more than a decade by 24 cannons distributed throughout the “green lung” of the city, covering more than 50 hectares of forest. They are activated automatically or manually when the risk increases, and the city council itself is considering bringing this same methodology to Serra Perenxisa using hydrants and pipes on forest trails. and it works. Already prevented a fire from spreading in the Túria Natural Park, dumping more than 218,000 liters of water in just over half an hour. Companies such as Hidraqua, Cetaqua, Medi XXI, along with the universities of Valencia are involved in this enormous project. In fact, Medi XXI also sells domestic and portable versions of these cannons for isolated homes and small urbanizations. While other communities face the same wave of fires with extreme confinement, as is the case of the entire population of Albeldain Castillonroy, resorting to the essential ES-Alert warnings and massive deployments of brigades and UME, Valencia has found another less reactive model. What is a fire cannon. It all starts with the SIDEINFO tower system. They are water monitors that measure between 12 and 16 meters high, shoot water about 42 meters away and mobilize almost double the discharge of a Canadair-type amphibious plane (about 6,000 liters at a time). They are fixed cannons, connected to tanks of about 500 m³ and pumping houses, integrated into a home automation network with sensors and weather stations that allow simulating the evolution of a fire and activating the irrigation/reinforcement system when the risk index demands it. In addition to moving large flows of water, they can also project foam with a range greater than 30-40 meters and can vary between manual, motorized or remote control. A difference between communities. The Valencian Community has become a testing laboratory. And the case of El Saler is quite unique: the city has been investing since 2023 in a system patented by the consulting firm Medi XXI GSA. The nucleus resides at that point where the CV-500 highway and the urban center intersect the forest. The engineer Ferran Dalmau argument that this system only makes sense at very specific points of the urban-forest interface, where opening large firebreaks would be unfeasible. Such an evacuation would cause a huge landscape impact, because it would leave a mountain with a giant bald patch. Although not everyone thinks the same: WWF Remember that these sprinkler systems are anecdotal for now and they are not clear that they work against high intensity fires. Once again, early detection, cleaning of perimeter vegetation and neighborhood self-protection plans are essential preventive guidelines. Protect yourself against maximum risk. In Valencia, where wind conditions can fan any spark, sometimes a fire overcomes the barriers of surveillance, forest management, mobile firefighting devices and, in short, the Special Plan against the Risk of Forest Fires (PEIF) itself. These cannons are, de facto, a reinforcement system. During the last few weeks, tracks and roads have been closed to traffic, the device has been reinforced with a forest nursery, El Saler Fire Station, Local Police and Civil Protection volunteers. This year, the deployment has mobilized 4,401 troops and 20 air resources throughout the Community, with 2,313 professionals in the province of Valencia, 56 forest firefighting units and 65 observatoriesten of them with 24-hour surveillance. Only in El Saler has a reinforcement of five firefighters and two extra patrol teams been activated. The Stop al Foc device of the Valencian Community brings together almost 1,700 professionals – 724 in the province of València, 470 in Castellón and 434 in Alicante – for a stage that, statistically, 68% is attributed to human activity (38% intentional, 30% due to negligence). The Albelda case. Some are saved and others burn? The difference with Huesca is clear: fewer water options, more unpopulated areas of territory and environmental conditions more conducive to fire. The declared fire at 18:15 In agricultural and forestry land, it devastated 100 hectares in a few hours and forced the Government of Aragon to raise the PROCINFO plan to operational situation 2. They cut off the N-230 and A-140 roads and the Military Emergency Unit (UME) is already there. It is already controlled, luckily, but the entire Tamarite de Litera area is at risk and the figures point to more than 400 hectares burned. All precautions are insufficient: the 2026 fire map is presented as the one with the highest incidence of forest fires in the EU. The Copernicus and FIRMS records speak of some 56,000 hectares burned, which represents almost 40% of the burned surface in the entire Union. The data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition is somewhat lower (39,700 ha until June 21, you can consult here updated data), but they agree that June has been the most destructive month. Doubling the numbers. What’s more, 19 fires have been recorded from July 2 alone until … Read more

Castilla-La Mancha accuses the Southeast of “watering wildly”, while irrigators find it impossible to survive what is coming

May 22, 2026 by usatoday24

On May 20, just before the Supreme Court will definitively close the door to the aspirations of irrigators to maintain the Tajo-Segura transfer as until now, the spokesperson for the Junta de Castilla – La Mancha He stood in front of the media and said it: water cannot be limited to the irrigators of the region while in the Levant “it is watered freely”, he came to say. That’s the gossip, but that’s not the news. The news is that, 47 years after the inauguration of the transfer and after a decade of judicial conflictthe battle for the water of the Tagus returns to the negotiating table. Not because of ecological flows; That (barring a surprise) has already been decided: he has returned to the table because the most difficult thing remains. Say who pays the bill. Whose water is it? Because that is the heart of the matter and where Castilla – La Mancha is wrong. As I have explained the Supremethe arguments of the Central Union of Irrigators of the Tajo-Segura Aqueduct do not apply, precisely, because it is not about taking water from ‘someone’ to give it to another ‘someone’. The ecological flows (which taxes come by the jurisprudence of the same court and by the EU directive) cannot have “a use character, and must be considered as a restriction that is generally imposed on exploitation systems.” The problem is that these flows represent, according to the technical reports, a water loss of around 40% for the irrigators of the east. Irrigators who, let us remember, have the right to that water according to the current transfer rules, who have made investments and have built businesses (‘livelihoods’) counting on that water that the State had granted them. Rules that do not apply. Due to the court battle, the new flows have not come into force and, at this time, the old rules continue to be used to send water to the Segura basin. In fact, for the April-June quarter There are 180hm3 authorized (a much larger amount than would correspond to the new standard). And the irrigators are nervous. With sense, too: the Administrations’ alternative (desalination) is lost in combat. And, in any case, that is water is between three and ten times more expensive. This is important because (as explained by the Community of Irrigators of Campo de Cartagena) “The irrigable surface has not expanded by one square meter since 2017“. It is no longer a question that without water they cannot grow; it is a question that without water they cannot “maintain what we already cultivate.” And that would lead us to a more than considerable industrial reconversion throughout the region. But there doesn’t seem to be any other solution. Because, as we see, the cuts are due to legal imperative. The administrations have little else to do: they have already been delaying the application of ecological flows for years and the situation has not improved one bit. It doesn’t mean that all this is over. It is likely that the Union will appeal to the European Court, but the reorientation of the agrarian model in the southeast cannot be extended if we want it to remain alive. That is to say: the hour of truth arrives. For decades, politicians have been passing the buck without taking the necessary measures (no matter how painful they may be). That is the economic, ecological and social bill that we are paying now. The only reasonable question is whether we have learned our lesson. Image | David Algas Oroquieta In Xataka | The Tagus reservoirs have reached their maximum level. The response of the authorities has been to empty them immediately

He is watering the desert with wind energy

June 29, 2025 by usatoday24

The impulse for clean energy has entered the Spanish field strongly. In many places, the new energy projects collide with neighbors, landscapes and life forms that carry generations there. In the north, there are neighborhood protests For the proliferation of wind turbines that alter the landscape. In agricultural areas of the south, solar panels compete with traditional crops. And meanwhile, in Lanzarote, they have found in the wind a tool for something very different: water. Transforming irrigation. As reported The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food through a press release, have launched an action to modernize the irrigation of 300 hectares in the northeast of Lanzarote, specifically in the municipalities of Tinajo and Teguise. The intervention, which is executed by the Public Company Seiasa, will focus on horticultural crops and will benefit 667 irrigators, although other sources raise this figure to 697, as He has published the province. The total investment amounts to 24.4 million euros, not counting the Canarian indirect general tax (IGIC). The Lanzarote council has contributed a quarter of the budget and has acquired the land where the rafts are located, As he pointed out Diario de Lanzarote. The rest is financed through the recovery, transformation and resilience (PRTR) plan, with European funds Next Generation. Watering with seawater. The work is articulated around an inverse osmosis, currently under construction together with the northeast treatment plant in Lanzarote, in the area of the saint. From there, the water will be driven through a pumping station to two agricultural areas, where it will be stored in a tank of 4,000 cubic meters in the knife and in a raft of 38,000 cubic meters in tincheche, such as Diario de Lanzarote has detailed. The entire infrastructure will have a telemedida and telecontrol system, which will allow automation and optimize the use of water, something crucial in a territory where each drop counts. Part of the energy that feeds the system will come from a wind turbine. It is not the first or the last. The use of wind turbines in Lanzarote to boost irrigation is not an isolated case, but part of a broader trend in the Canarian archipelago: take advantage of their extreme natural conditions to test technological solutions that could be key in the energy and agricultural future. The combination of desalination, clean energy and automation makes these islands live laboratories. In other areas of the archipelago it is also being experienced with innovative solutions. In iron, for example, they have been trying more than a decade Energy self -sufficiency with renewablesalthough they continue to partially depend on diesel. In Gran Canaria, a laptop fed by renewable energy has been installed to demonstrate that Drinking water can be produced without resorting to fossil fuels. In addition, on the islands as a whole It is exploring The use of the strength of waves to generate drinking water, through a system that converts the energy of the waves into electricity that feeds a desalination plant. These experiences, distributed by different islands, are part of the same impulse: try, rehearse, anticipate. An agricultural laboratory. This type of infrastructure suggests more than the improvement of irrigation in a specific area. In a country increasingly affected by drought and The energy increasethe viability of the field will depend largely on how resources as basic as water or energy are managed. In this context, Lanzarote, with its extreme conditions, works almost as an agricultural laboratory. And what is rehearsed there – or not – can mark the way for other agricultural areas that seek sustainable alternatives without giving up producing. The combination of unconventional sources of water and renewable energies does not solve all the dilemmas of the sector, but opens a space to rethink the agricultural model at a time when the current system shows clear signs of exhaustion. Image | Ignacioromeroperera and Unspash Xataka | A perfect storm looms over Spanish olive oil: heat, pests and a problem of productive capacity

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