Friday, March 29

Forbidden to wash cars and fill swimming pools: these are the restrictions due to the drought alert in Barcelona


The Generalitat has decreed a drought alert on Tuesday in the area of ​​the Darnius-Boadella reservoir and in the basins of the Ter and Llobregat rivers, which supply, among other areas, the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. Due to the lack of water, 26 counties and a total of 514 municipalities will suffer restrictions as of this Friday.

Without water in the town of 7,000 inhabitants and 2,000 swimming pools: “You never know if something will come out of the tap”

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At the moment, the Government does not plan to enter a state of emergency, so for now, the restrictions will not affect drinking water. The uses that will be restricted are agricultural irrigation (which must be reduced by 25%), livestock uses (10%), industrial (5%), recreational uses that involve irrigation (30%) and other recreational uses (5 %).

A scenario is opening up in which various economic activities will have to cut their water consumption, but as the Councilor for Climate Emergency and Ecological Transition of the Barcelona City Council has reported, “citizens will not notice too many changes”. Badía wanted to reassure the public and explained that few municipal services will be affected.

Drinking water sources intact

One of the effects that the inhabitants of large cities will notice will be that the ornamental fountains that work with drinking water will stop, which in the case of Barcelona is 42%. Fountains such as the one at Montjuïc, which work with groundwater, will continue to operate. The only change regarding the irrigation of parks and public gardens, is that that which is carried out with drinking water will become nocturnal.

Regarding drinking water sources, these will not suffer any affectation because the consistory considers them “an essential service”. Likewise, no effects are expected in municipal swimming pools, since they have “high efficiency systems” that require little water consumption.

Neither wash the car nor fill swimming pools

Regarding private uses, the affectations will also be minimal. The restrictions will have to do with the prohibition of filling private pools and washing vehicles with a hose.

The Generalitat’s alert plan also requires that private gardens be irrigated only twice a week, in such a way that consumption drops by 5%. Monitoring of compliance with this measure will be carried out jointly with the water service concession company, from which each city council will request an expense report.

No forecast of tougher measures

The Catalan administrations ask the citizens for cooperation when it comes to complying with these restrictions, while expressing that the weather forecasts are not bad. If the scenario continues as the current one, the Generalitat rules out implementing tougher measures that could affect drinking water.

The Government spokesperson, Patrícia Plaja, wanted to reassure the population by assuring that “there is still a lot of room” and that an exceptional scenario is not expected yet. Even so, she has stated that the climate context is “very worrying” and she has asked citizens to change their water consumption habits, something that is “basic, necessary and urgent”.

The Barcelona City Council have expressed themselves along the same lines and have called for “extreme caution and paying maximum attention to droughts, which will be increasingly aggravated due to climate change,” said Eloi Badia.

The Drought Plan, the tool to manage episodes of water shortages, has been activated in Catalonia since October 2021. Since then, the situation has been analyzed monthly in order to activate measures to alleviate the lack of rain.

For example, the production of desalination plants has increased (from 20 to 90% of their capacity), which have prevented the reservoirs from being seven points below their current level. The production of reclaimed water has also been boosted.

This increase in available water has prevented the drought alert from being decreed on occasions when the lack of rain has been notable. Even so, the Barcelona City Council has also wanted to recognize the co-responsibility of citizens.

Badia recalled the last major drought alert, which was decreed in 2008. At that time, the city’s average consumption was 170 liters per person per day and, currently, the figure has dropped by 14%. With this, citizen consumption in Barcelona today stands at 106 liters per day, “much better than in other cities in the Spanish state, where the average is 140 liters”, Badia said.



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