Only three municipalities in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) exceed the recommended water consumption rates in an exceptional situation due to drought like the current one. “In general terms, consumption is being adjusted”, defended yesterday the vice-president of the AMB’s Ecology area, Eloi Badia. According to data from the metropolitan body, the towns that exceed the set limit of 230 liters per inhabitant per day are Cervelló, Corbera de Llobregat and La Palma de Cervelló. Are your neighbors less responsible? Badia was definitive and his answer was no. “This situation is not due to the consumption of its neighbors, it is due to problems in the network”, he pointed out with reference to situations such as leaks.
The three towns of Baix Llobregat share some characteristics. For example, its hydraulic performance is low. The AMB documentation explains that Cervelló reaches 41.9% in this factor. This means that more than half of the water that reaches this town of 9,307 inhabitants is lost for various reasons. Corbera reaches 51%, and Palma de Cervelló, 53%. To make a comparison, the hydraulic performance of Barcelona city reaches approximately 85%.
But clearly, the previous confrontation is not fair. It is not as difficult to bring water to the flats of a compact city such as Barcelona or L’Hospitalet as it is to the houses in these localities. We are talking about towns located in mountainous areas, with a complex orography for the supply of basic services. There are single-family houses, housing developments… The network is much more complex and therefore it is easier for it to have errors.
In Cervelló, the total length of the water supply networks is 113.47 kilometers. This means a ratio of 12.19 meters per inhabitant. The metropolitan average is much lower, at 1.9 meters per inhabitant. In Corbera de Llobregat it reaches 12.8 meters per inhabitant, and in Palma de Cervelló, 4.6.
Even if they are not to blame, Eloi Badia explained that 22,000 letters have been sent to users in localities that exceed the limits established in the current phase of drought. And although he explained that the evolution of the three populations has been positive in recent months, medium-term solutions can only come from long-awaited investments to renew the system.
In Cervelló, almost 90% of the network is more than thirty years old and 30% may be more than half a century old. In La Palma the situation is similar: the AMB estimates that half of the networks are over thirty years old, and 26% over 50. And in Corbera over 50% are over 50 years old.
Badia recalled that the call for subsidies from the Generalitat de Catalunya of 70 million euros is expected to renew these infrastructures. He also considered it “logical” that the AMB be added to the financial aid to the town councils, although this decision corresponds to the next metropolitan government.
On average, domestic consumption in the metropolitan area is 165 liters per person per day, far from the 230 that marks the exceptional situation. But every drop counts and according to the AMB’s calculations there are more than 25,000 households that spend more than they need to. On the next receipt, they will receive a letter to warn them of the problem.
In the water consumption of a municipality there are many more factors than domestic consumption, such as economic activities, for example. But focusing on the use of the most precious liquid by the residents, only 1.76% of households exceeded 200 liters per person per day during the past year. The town with the highest percentage of residents who use a lot of water is Sant Cugat del Vallès, with 4.78%. It is followed by Sant Just Desvern (4.59%) and Begues (4.03%). At the opposite end, the most responsible domestic users are in Papiol (0.11%), Santa Coloma de Cervelló (0.13%) and Bellaterra (0.24%).
Not only citizens, farmers and companies use water. Tourists also require it. After having studied the consumption in sixty hotels in Barcelona, ??Badia said that “a tourist consumes twice as much as a neighbor”.
