Spain: Europe’s garden, in search of new water resources

The prospect of water transfer from the Tagus to the Segura river being reduced by almost half over the next five years, according to the government's plans, has been experienced as a real funeral amid farmers in Alicante, Murcia and Almería for weeks.

Water disputes escalate

The government's decision to further reduce the volume of water from the Tagus-Segura inter-basin diversion is once again fueling the everlasting territorial conflict of the water war. According to the newspaper El Mundo, "an endemic problem that the government does not dare to tackle comprehensively in a constructive spirit, leading to the embarrassing spectacle of seeing regional representatives getting embroiled in all kinds of cross-reproaches".

At the end of July, the Council of Ministers approved new thresholds for the water transfer with the main goal of improving the ecological flows of the Tagus. The agro-food sector in the area receiving water from that basin thanks to the Tagus-Segura aqueduct includes the Valencian Region (mainly Alicante and Valencia), Murcia and Almería, known as Europe’s garden.

This Ministry for Ecological Transition’s decision could jeopardize the competitiveness of farms and businesses in the southern Mediterranean basin if they have to over-invest in water resources coming from desalination plants. If they have to use desalinated water as the only option for irrigation, the cost would be unaffordable for them.

Water five times more expensive

The solution offered by the minister to compensate for the loss of aqueduct water is to increase desalination and reuse. “Our commitment involves strengthening the resources within each basin that is, increasing the volume of desalinated water, facilitating internal interconnections of all infrastructures and all resources, including water reuse”, Mrs. Ribera said when the new water cuts raised complaints from Levante’s farmers and politicians.

The biggest problem about the minister's solution is the high cost of water prices. Whereas farmers receiving water from the aqueduct pay 0.17 cents per cubic meter, the cubic meter for desalinated water rises to 0.58 cents, five times more expensive. "Farmers cannot pay more than 0.20-0.30 cents for their crops to be profitable", the president of the Tagus-Segura Irrigation Union (SCRATS), Lucas Jiménez, states.

Irrigation with desalinated water

The price, being the biggest problem, is not the only one. According to studies by the University of Murcia, the use of desalinated water affects soil conservation and the productivity of crops, especially citrus fruits, table grapes and tomatoes.

In Israel, the only country, along with Spain, where desalinated water is being used in irrigation, it has been found that the osmosis process carried out in desalination plants generates water with low mineralization and a high boron content, "which can be toxic for many crops, so it requires post-treatment," Prof. Antonio Rico, University of Alicante, adds. The recommendation to tackle these two problems is to mix desalination resources with water from the aqueduct, which also involves an investment in infrastructure.

However, there are further obstacles. If one of the arguments for reducing the amount of water transferred is environmental, the energy cost of desalinating one cubic meter of seawater is close to 3kw/hour, while taking it from the Tagus basin to the Segura is 0.9 kw/hour.

Added to this, the production of brine could affect the Mediterranean posidonia and lead to a reduction in the CO₂ sink effect of irrigation in the Levante region. Europe's garden absorbs 1.2 million tons of CO₂ per year. Using desalinated water, this would be reduced by 10%, a figure that would fall to 40% if the water transfer were to disappear.

The water war calls for a national plan

Farmers and businessmen have already announced actions against the government's new decision, which is nothing more than a new patch to avoid the evidence that the only realistic solution to the problem of water scarcity is, inexorably, the development of an authentic National Water Plan in which all parties have a voice.

“Water policy must be based on the principles of solidarity and efficiency. Nevertheless, there will be no peace in this inter-regional battle until an arbitrator - which should be the national government -mediates in a way that creates common rules for all and rationalizes water to make environmental needs compatible with those of agriculture and the service sector”, according to El Mundo.

Water reuse for farming irrigation

Apart from desalinated water, water reuse for irrigation is another option that contributes to a more sustainable management of agriculture in Spain.

According to Prof. Irene Blanco, Polytechnic University of Madrid, public health risks are a serious obstacle to the widespread use of reclaimed water. For this, many countries have developed strict regulations with costly compliance requirements.

The EC has recently approved Regulation 2020/741 on minimum requirements for water reuse. This regulation, which shall apply from June 2023, includes chemical and biological parameters to ensure that reclaimed water is safe for agricultural irrigation.

On the other hand, farmers are reluctant because water reuse is more costly energetically than surface water and groundwater. The costs for the production of reused water have been borne mostly by the treatment plant operators. However, according to Spanish regulations, these costs should be borne by the end users (farmers). Prof. Blanco hopes that "the willingness to assume them will increase when the right signals are sent to farmers about the real cost of water and the need to achieve the environmental and economic sustainability of their activity".

This expert is the coordinator of a project, funded by the Spanish Research Agency, to analyze the potential of this alternative water source in Spain, as well as its social, economic and environmental implications. The RECLAMO (REuse to a resourCe-efficient and sustainabLe wAter management for irrigatiOn) project is running from 2020 to 2024.

What are the barriers to greater utilization of wastewater? For Prof. Blanco, apart from health, public health and financial barriers, there are technical barriers, related to wastewater treatment, infrastructure development and irrigation techniques. There are also environmental and regulatory barriers and, finally, barriers linked to the perception and social acceptance of reclaimed water for agriculture.

What is farmers’ reaction?

Fenacore, the umbrella organization of all Spanish irrigators, thinks that the use of desalinated and reclaimed water should only be a complement to conventional water resources in order to guarantee food supply in the future. Its president, Andrés del Campo, also argues that, in the face of climate change-induced water scarcity, what it is needed is an increase in water availability for irrigation to meet growing food needs.

The organization supports the use of treated waste water for agricultural irrigation, but believes that the European regulation will it make more difficult the export of agro-food products. For Fenacore, the problem does not lie in the requirement for higher water quality at the outlet of the treatment plant, but in its maintenance along the whole irrigation distribution network.

Mr del Campo points out that Spain had had legislation on this subject for 12 years. Moreover, he states that it is the European country with the highest volume of reused water (350-400 Hm³). In any case, Fenacore advocates the "polluter pays" principle so that the cost of treatment should be borne by the person who generates the wastewater and not by the farmer who irrigates with reclaimed water.

Public aid

There are currently aids from the Ministry for Ecological Transition (MITECO), which include investments and actions related to water and agriculture and from the EU Recovery Fund as well

(1) I Circular Economy Action Plan: to be implemented over the period 2021-2023 with a budget of €1,529 million. One of its 8 main lines of action will focus on the reuse of water, with initiatives, among others, aimed at supporting irrigation using reclaimed water.

(2) 3^rd River Basin Management Plans 2022-2027: to be sent to Brussels before the end of the year, they will involve investments of nearly €8 billion and must be implemented to comply with the Water Framework Directive.

• Investments of €1,600 million for the basins of the Tagus-Segura aqueduct. For Minister Ribera, the Tagus-Segura inter-basin diversion is an essential infrastructure for supply and irrigation uses in the basins receiving water. However, there are risks arising from climate change that jeopardize the good condition of the aqueduct.
• The planned actions will be related to water treatment and sanitation to improve water quality, modernization of irrigation in some sections and expansion of desalination capacity in the receiving basin.
• They will also work on modifying the energy scheme of desalination using renewable energies such as photovoltaic. In this way, energy costs will be significantly reduced. The area’s desalination plants will be interconnected in order to deliver desalinated water to all the aqueduct-irrigated lands at a price affordable by the users (farmers).

 (3) EU Recovery Fund: of the more than one billion euros to be managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 2021 and 2022, €563 million, plus €140 million of private investment, will go to irrigation modernization (More info  https://bit.ly/3Duvruk) .

The Mar Menor crisis

The largest coastal saltwater lagoon in the Mediterranean suffers an environmental collapse that could have been avoided.

The Mar Menor (located in Murcia) is plunged into its worst crisis with almost five tons of dead fish being washed up in recent days. The political battle is weighing down the resolution of this long-standing situation. The national and regional governments both argue they lack the powers needed to tackle it.

This environmental catastrophe has resurfaced at the same time than farmers complain about the new decrease in water transferred from Tagus to Segura, being Murcia irrigated lands among those hard affected.

The situation is getting more and more complicated after a very recent Greenpeace report, which goes further by demanding that the recovery of the Mar Menor entails the total elimination of the Tagus-Segura water transfer.

In a future article, we will address this Mar Menor topic in some more depth, not a simple one as it has a number of aspects.

Several sources