Watering hole

In Valencia in eastern Spain, golf courses are required by law to use recycled water for irrigation. This is just one of the measures taken by the government of the autonomous region to combat years of severe drought, and was highlighted in a report adopted in April by the Brussels-based Committee of the regions (CoR).

The rapporteur, Valencian president Francisco Camps Ortiz, says that because climatic conditions vary greatly across the EU, a uniform solution to water shortage and drought management is not possible. He says that regions are responsible for putting in place their own solutions to the problem of scarce water. In his report he recommends that regional and local authorities do more to conserve water and cut down on wastage. “Water is a scarce commodity and a right,” he told the CoR plenary session in April. “The best method to deal with droughts and water scarcity is through a coherent water planning policy in member states with the involvement of the local and regional authorities,” he wrote in a release on the EPP group’s website.

And his regional focus may well be borne out by the latest research into climatic patterns, carried out by the Valencia-based Mediterranean centre for environmental studies (CEAM). With the help of EU funding under FP7, the centre has found that drought on the Mediterranean coast is directly related to flooding in central Europe. The reason for this, says CEAM, is because changes in land use – urbanisation and the drying up of marshland – have caused a reduction in coastal humidity, meaning summer clouds over Mediterranean mountains don’t produce any rain. The rain that failed to fall in the mountains turns into flooding once these clouds finally break over central Europe. CEAM’s research says that flooding experienced by countries like Austria and the Czech Republic in recent years can be put down to the changing meteorological patterns on the Mediterranean coast.

At a meeting of the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) in Valencia last November, an IPCC report found that, “There is high confidence that many semi-arid areas (e.g. Mediterranean Basin, western United States, southern Africa and north-eastern Brazil) will suffer a decrease in water resources due to climate change.” This being true, the Valencian solution for their particular problem is quite simple  – use money and water efficiently. One of the first points Camps Ortiz underlines in his report is the European commission’s definition of drought and water scarcity. While drought is described as a “temporary phenomenon”, water scarcity is a “structural situation” where demand for water exceeds supply. The Valencia region, along with some of its neighbours in the Mediterranean basin, has piloted several projects, some funded by the EU, to try to find innovative solutions for both structural and climatic problems. According to a release from the Valencia representation in Brussels, the region is a leader in obtaining EU funding in the field of environmentally related projects – especially when it comes to water.

In the Marina Baja area on the Valencian coast, it’s possible to purify water from agriculture for human consumption, while urban waste water is subject to tertiary treatment and reused for irrigation. The region also participates in projects outside its own borders, one of which is Wateregio, a platform for exchanging ideas, experiences and best practice in water management and resources. The network identifies partners for common projects, whether EU funded or not. And also looking at the bigger picture is Spain’s national federation of irrigators, Fenacore, which is piloting a project that they predict will see around half a million farmers using computerised irrigation systems by 2010. The project, Corenet, will allow water usage statistics to be collected centrally, as well as offer farmers online news and breaking information online, by email or SMS. The system can quantify the amount of water necessary to irrigate land in a given area, says Fenacore, which can improve water management for up to 1.6m hectares of land. Data gathered by Fenacore from 2006 shows that the Corenet project has benefited 200,000 users and 400,000 hectares of land so far.

Taking into account the results of projects in his own region, Camps Ortiz advises the EU to promote the reuse of purified water to manage demand – subject to proper infrastructure and management, of course. He recommends that EU funds invested in infrastructure should have the aim of conserving water, preserving wetlands, regenerating forest areas, saving water as well as reallocating water between uses, and alleviating situations caused by severe drought using additional means of water supply. “The way ahead lies in the exchange of information and the drafting of a specific protocol for droughts or, at national level, the drafting of specific management plans,” he writes in his report. And, echoing the IPCC’s analysis, he adds, “Europe’s map of droughts, water scarcities and related disasters will change as the climate changes.”