Warming-driven desertification is spreading. Australia has gotten the most attention, but Spain is also turning into a desert. As Time reported:
The trend is a dire one. The NYT reports today,
And this is just after a global warming of .8°C. Imagine what will happen to Spain, Australia, the Southwest, and the entire planet when we warm another 3°C to 5°C.
Conflict has already begun inside of Spain for water:
Ground Zero of Spain’s new water wars, however, may be Barcelona’s planned diversion of the Ebro, Spain’s largest river, which is expected to be completed in October. The Socialist government of recently reelected Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero plans to build a pipeline alongside the highway to transport diverted Ebro water north to Barcelona. But when he was first elected in 2004, Zapatero’s government overturned a similar plan, hatched by the conservative Popular Party (PP), to divert water south to Valencia. The fact that Barcelona’s government is Socialist, while Valencia is ruled by the PP, has fed suspicions of political favoritism. “The government has humiliated us,” said Francisco Camps, president of the Valencia region and a PP member.
Murcia, another conservative-governed coastal region that would have benefited from the original diversion, is also outraged. “Barcelona is a major metropolis, and their economy depends on a steady water supply, so it is completely logical and necessary that they have this diversion,” says Antonio Cerda, city councilman for agriculture and water. “But Murcia is one of the most important agricultural regions of Spain. We need the water diversion for our economy. It’s only fair that we have one too.”
So heated is the debate that the Zapatero government has refused to even describe the Ebro pipeline to Barcelona as a diversion, calling it instead a “temporary solution,” or, if pressed, a “mini-diversion”.
Again, imagine what will happen when we warm 4 to 6 times as much of this century as we did last century. The time to act is yesterday!
Related Posts:
- Dry me a River: Climate change and drought
- Australia today = U.S. southwest by 2050
- Australia faces the “permanent dry” — as do we
- Warming Will Worsen Water Wars
- 2007: A record-setting U.S. drought year
- And the drought goes on
- Brutal Drought Where It’s Normally Wet
- Global Warming Imperils 4th of July
- Los Angeles: Worst Drought Ever Recorded
- USA Today Almost Gets the Drought Story Right
- The NY Times Blows the Drought Story, too.
RSS
Subscribe by Email
Follow Climate Progress on Twitter
Your figures are a bit outdated. Spain has just witnessed the wettest spring in quite a while. The reservoirs serving Barcelona are now 53% full, and last weekend we had floods in the Basque Country.
The underlying trend is quite clear nonetheless, and Spain is bound to be one of the countries most affected by global warming in Europe.
Like Spain parts of the western US received a better dose of snowpack this past winter. However, the snowpack maps indicate the that southern California, and Arizona will be very dry. The Colorado River itself fed from furthre north should be in good shape. ftp://ftp.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ support/ water/ westwide/ snowpack/ wy2008/ snow0805.gif
Lake Okeechobee, Florida on the other hand is still very low., 3.5 feet below normal. https://my.sfwmd.gov/ portal/ page?_pageid=2814,19613298,2814_19613444&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
Sorry, but the period in the first link, must be removed for it to be accurate.
G’awn
Yes, I see those were mid-May figures. There have been recent rains. See here.
The reservoir is now half full, after torrential rains. That’s good news?
Hope, the rain would have brought some relief, the pic looks very scary!
John said:
“The reservoir is now half full, after torrential rains. That’s good news?”
Sure it is, as opposed to having to ship water to Barcelona.
All in all I think this rains have been mainly a good thing, though as we say here in Spain, “It never rains to everyone liking”
GoingGreen said:
“Hope, the rain would have brought some relief, the pic looks very scary!”
It has, as far as I know, but –another saying :->
“It is bread for today, hunger for tomorrow”
It doesn’t seem we’ll be able to stop the desertification in the long run.
From pollen studies, the Western Mediterranian region has been warming for about 8000 years.
Actually, the local authorities say that Barcelona has now enough water for the whole following year! What’s more, it’s still raining – like today! It’s been raining for 5 weeks and there’s no stopping this! Only today we ve been having heavy showers again. The Basque contry is under water now by the way.
Can anyone point me at a good website for comparative historical weather data for Spain or at least the Costa Blanca? I’d love to know how the wetness of this year compares.
Thank you