Dryer future forces Iberian governments to collaborate more

  • Lusa
  • 22 March 2021

The environmental organization ANP/WWF warned on Monday that the future will be dryer on the Iberian Peninsula.

The future is dry on the Iberian Peninsula, warned the environmental organization ANP/WWF on Monday, with a report in which it advocates more collaboration between Portugal and Spain to manage rivers and water availability.

“Climate models confirm a reduction in rainfall in conjunction with a consistent increase in average temperatures, resulting in greater evaporation,” said Associação Natureza Portugal, the national representative of the World Wide Fund for Nature (ANP/WWF).

The result of this, with a tendency to worsen until 2050, will be “less water in the soil, rivers and aquifers as the 21st century progresses”.

The possible scenarios stem from an increase in temperature in the 20th century and a downward trend in rainfall, especially further south.

“However, given the high variability of precipitation, there is no clear trend for the 21st century,” the report stresses.

Hence, irregularity “in the volume, seasonality and intensity” of precipitation and more frequency of intense storms are predicted.

Even without changes in human consumption demands, plants and animals will find it harder to meet all their water needs. For humans, it will be a challenge to have all the water available to maintain current lifestyles”, indicates the organization.

The ANP/WWF considers it essential that those who consume the most water pay the most for it – and argues that the Portuguese Government should apply progressive tariffs to the exploitation of water from boreholes along the southern coast of the Algarve, and that the Spanish Government should do the same for the aquifers fed by the Guadiana and Doñana rivers.

It also advocates a review of the flows agreed in international rivers by the Albufeira Convention, and the anticipation of extreme weather events in the management of river basins, foreseeing the circumstances in which it is necessary to store for droughts, or guarantee minimum flows to limit the impact on watercourses.

Throughout the peninsula, the report advocates “changing the relationship with water”, especially on the part of “the productive sectors that consume more, mainly for agricultural use”.

ANP/WWF points to the increased use of resources in Portugal, such as intensive irrigation from the Alqueva dam, and in Spain, in Campo de Cartagena, as evidence of the “likely collapse of biodiversity and the diminishing security for nature and people”.

For biodiversity, the scenario is already one of “obvious crisis”, with an 84 per cent decline in freshwater species between 1970 and 2016.

In the particular case of the Iberian Peninsula, 52 per cent of species are in extinction risk categories, the report states.