The rains since the end of last week have made possible a certain recovery in the level of the reservoirs in the Barcelona region served by the Ter and the Llobregat. However, the accumulated volume is at 20% of its maximum capacity, which shows that we are far from overcoming the drought. The forecast, meanwhile, is that the accumulated resources may increase in the coming days, thanks to new contributions. “It is expected that in the coming days the increasing trend will continue, since the headwaters of the rivers still carry a lot of water and the thaw will serve to feed the flow of the rivers,” say the technicians of the Catalan Water Agency ( HERE).
The region of Barcelona, ??areas of Girona and the Costa Brava remain in a grade I emergency situation, without it being possible to specify when the current restrictions can be lifted (for agricultural, livestock, urban and even domestic uses in many localities). Government sources have placed that (discretionary) bar at around 25%.
Once this threshold is exceeded, the emergency phase could be exited to enter the pre-emergency or exceptional phase again, where the restrictions are somewhat lighter. But it would not be an automatic decision and it could be influenced not only by the state of the reservoirs but also by the rain forecast.
“The rain that has fallen and is still falling has had direct repercussions on the state of the reservoirs in the internal basins, but the water of the last few hours should not distort the real situation, which is that we continue in drought,” stated the Government spokesperson, Patrícia Plaja.
The rainfall is “good news, but it is not enough to say that the situation has been reversed,” added the spokesperson at the press conference after the weekly meeting of the Catalan government.
The reserves of the internal basins of Catalonia are at 19.1% of their capacity, with 133 cubic hectometres. And, in the specific case of the Ter Llobregat system, which supplies the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona and part of Girona, it is at 20%, with 122.5 hm3.
Plaja has reported that the forecast is for the increasing trend to continue because it will continue to rain in the north of Catalonia in the coming days and there is still snow in the mountains to thaw.
In any case, the Ter Llobregat system remains in emergency phase I and the spokesperson has indicated that there is no date to leave this stage.
“We will not maintain the restrictions for the sake of maintaining them, because we know how they condition daily life and all sectors of the country. The moment we are certain that we can reverse the situation because we have enough reserves, we will do so, but it would be premature to say so today “he stated.
The spokesperson recalled that the Minister of Climate Action, David Mascort, placed the reserve threshold at approximately 25% to consider leaving the emergency phase and moving on to the previous one. However, he has indicated that the decision will not depend only on that figure, but also on the short-term rain forecast and the time of year.
The worst moment of the drought is behind us, although the emergency has not disappeared for a geographical area made up of some 200 municipalities where six million people live.
That worst moment came at the beginning of March, when the Ter and Llobregat reservoirs reached their minimum level: around 14% of their capacity and with 91 hm3.
And since then there has been a slight improvement, more noticeable in recent times.
The rains of the month of March (especially the rainfall that fell in the episode of days 7 and 8) helped the reserves to break the downward trend, which began at the end of June 2023, and increase slightly.
This increasing trend lasted until April 24-25 (due to the contributions of the rivers and the melting of snow), the date on which a stabilization of the reserves began with a slight decreasing trend.
By April 26, the reserves in the Ter-Llobregar system were around 19% of their capacity and accumulated 116.4 hm3 of water (with a gain of 25 hm3 and more than 4 percentage points). For their part, reserves in all internal basins were at 18.1% on those dates, with a total of 126.1 hm3 (25 hm3 more than at the beginning of March and 2 points more)
The improvement has intensified since Thursday and Friday of last week and, above all, since this Monday, April 29, when an episode of rain was recorded that had not been recorded in Catalonia since autumn 2021 (November). .
The gain from the last episode of rain has been about 7 hm3 in all the internal basins, a figure that will grow in the coming days.
The episode of rainfall on Monday was heavy, extensive and has had beneficial effects in almost the entire territory, and has given rise to very high increases in flow, especially in the lower basin of the Llobregat and Besòs.
Meanwhile, in the headwaters of the rivers there was also a growth in flow that is still maintained. As of this Tuesday it stands at 43.7 m3/s of the Ter in Ripoll (when before the rains it was about 3 m3/s); and 40.7 m3/s in Llobregat in Guardiola de Berguedà (when before the episode it was around 1.5 m3/s).
