Restrictions and water cuts, partial or total, in a hundred municipalities in the south of the Peninsula due to the extreme drought. After a winter lacking in rainfall, aggravated by a summer where the mercury easily exceeds 40ºC in a general way, Andalusia is drying up at a dizzying rate. Water reserves are at a minimum in most of the territory (the reservoirs are at 23.52% of their capacity), and the different governments, regional and local, are forced to adopt drastic measures.
Given the harsh predictions, many towns implemented restrictions on the use of water in autumn, although these measures have not been able to alleviate the lack of water and in July cuts have had to be carried out in more than a hundred municipalities. Córdoba, Málaga and Huelva are the most affected provinces.
The two main basins of the community, the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation (CHG) (21.11%) and the Andalusian Mediterranean Basin (29.64%), are losing liquid day after day, according to data from the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the demographic challenge. This water deficit translates into supply cuts at night and, in some cases, restrictions have been further tightened.
In the Córdoba municipality of Lucena, with a population of 40,000 people and within the CHG, it was decided to suspend the daytime supply last weekend until the deposits that feed the city have managed to be replenished, although restrictions will continue to be applied due to the night.
However, the most worrying situation is in Los Pedroches and Alto Guadiato, with a population of 80,000 residents, who have not had drinking water since April after the level of the reservoir that supplies them, La Colada, has dropped drastically. and is contaminated with organic carbon, which in turn affects the transfer that is made to Sierra Boyera.
In Seville, and within the same river basin district, the restrictions began long before the summer, such as the ban on filling swimming pools, but only Casariche has been forced to make night cuts in July.
As for Malaga, the outlook is not more encouraging. La Viñuela, the largest water store in the province, which supplies 14 municipalities, is in critical condition, at only 8.48% of its capacity. The region of Axarquía, which is supplied by this reservoir, is where the most severe measures are being applied, with night cuts, while on the coast there are recommendations to make rational use of drinking water and some beaches have been closed the shower faucet. It is in the Mediterranean basin where one of the points most stressed by the drought is located. This is the case of Almería, for example, which has the worst record in its reservoirs (14.73%) and yet is oblivious, at least for the moment, to this type of prohibition.
For its part, the demarcation of Tinto and Odiel, in Huelva, is at 64.63% and, however, in the mountains, the area where it rains the most, the drought is affecting more than a dozen municipalities. Aracena and Picos de Aroche suffer cuts for at least six hours a day in the best of cases. These measures began to be applied in April in Cumbres Mayores (with 11 hours of service suspension per day), Santa Olalla del Cala or Cala, but the list of those affected has been adding new names in recent weeks.
In Cádiz, where the Guadalete-Barbate basin is at 19.44%, restrictions are being implemented and some municipalities do not provide showers on the beaches and prohibit watering gardens as well as filling swimming pools.
Only Jaén and Granada remain outside the general trend, where the solution to these problems involves having the necessary water infrastructure, desalination and regeneration of its waters in the immediate future.
