Spain’s water war gets political

MURCIA, Spain — Water, or the lack of it, is Spain’s new battlefield.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in a dispute over a 200-mile waterway. For four decades, water has been diverted from Spain’s longest river, the Tagus, via a series of aqueducts and tunnels, to the Segura River in the southeast, allowing for the extensive cultivation of fruit and vegetables.

But a plan by the Spanish government to increase the flow in the Tagus, which provides water for towns and cities across western Spain and parts of Portugal, including Madrid and Lisbon, will severely restrict the amount flowing into the Segura.

A backlash from farmers and politicians in the affected areas has made it a hot-button political issue ahead of local elections slated for May, and highlights the competing pressures on Spain’s water resources as climate change starts to bite.

The decision by the leftist coalition government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to reduce the flow along the artificial channel to the Segura comes in response to a series of national court rulings stating that the Tagus’ water level must be increased to ensure it is in line with EU regulations on river water levels. The new plan aims to increase the river’s flow from 6 cubic meters per second to 8.6 cubic meters by 2027. 

“Of course, if we need to ensure there is [the right water level] in the Tagus, the available amount that is transferred to drier areas of Spain will probably become lower and lower,” Teresa Ribera, minister for ecological transition, told POLITICO. 

She insists the move goes beyond simply complying with national and EU laws. “We want to anticipate solutions to something that is already a reality,” she said. “We have less available water because of climate change.”

Resistance from “the people that were expecting to keep the same amount” is inevitable, she added.

Feeding Europe

The southeastern provinces of Murcia, Almería and Alicante that make up Spain’s fruit and vegetable heartland — the so-called “Orchard of Europe” — produce around 70 percent of all vegetables and a quarter of all fruit exports, according to farming associations.

“Here the climate is perfect for fruit, that’s why Murcia and the surrounding area feed Europe,” said local farmer Juan Guillén, standing in his field of lemon trees in Archena, in the region of Murcia. Spanish and Moroccan workers harvest the lemons, which will be exported to the U.K.

To compensate for the lack of rain, he relies on water diverted south via the channel. The green plains and gentle slopes surrounding him would be “a lunar landscape” without it, he says.

“This is a way of life. If the water stops coming we don’t work,” said Rubén Pastor, a worker loading fruit onto a truck nearby. “Instead of solving problems, the politicians just fight with each other.”

Those like Guillén and Pastor who want the current water supply to the southeast to remain intact point to the economic arguments: More than 100,000 jobs rely on the farming it makes possible, contributing around €3 billion to the Spanish economy, according to the farming association SCRATS.

Guillén warned that losing water supply would cause food shortages and result in price hikes in countries that import Spanish fruit and vegetables.

In January, farmers from the area traveled to Madrid to protest outside the ministry of ecological transition in a last-ditch effort to change the mind of the government. They failed.

“Our response is: Sorry, but it could be that you will have less and less water coming from the Tagus because of climate change, rather than because of any political decision,” said Ribera. “So it’s much better to anticipate this scenario and to build and invest in new infrastructures.”

The government has announced €1.6 billion in infrastructure investment, particularly in desalination plants, to make up for the shortfall. Farmers say desalinated water is too costly and lacks the nutrients needed for crop cultivation.

‘Against reason and logic’

The dispute is not only pitting farmers against the central government, it’s also creating tensions among local administrations in the affected regions.

Castile-La Mancha is an agricultural region and it supports the Tagus project. The region is governed by the local arm of Sánchez’s Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), making it a natural ally of the central government on the issue.

Emiliano García-Page, the region’s president, denounces the artificial waterway as a long-standing folly that “was created against the interests of this region and against reason and logic.”

Meanwhile, the Valencia region, where Alicante is located, opposes the new plan, despite also being governed by the PSOE. The Valencia government has filed an appeal before the Supreme Court calling for the new water parameters to be reversed, describing them as “an arbitrary decision not based on technical criteria.”

The Valencia region’s opposition to the water plan aligns it with the conservative Popular Party (PP), which governs the other regions in the Orchard of Europe dealing with a looming water shortage, Murcia and Andalusia.

With elections in Valencia, Murcia and Castile-La Mancha slated to take place in late May, the rhetoric is heating up — and water could have a major impact on the results.

The PP president of Murcia, Fernando López Miras, took to the streets of his region’s capital to warn voters of the consequences of the water plan, claiming it will lead to shortages and hikes in bills. In Murcia, he said, water “is everything, it’s life, it’s farming, it’s industry, it’s transport, it is the social foundation of our region.”

One poll showed that water was the second-biggest concern for Murcia residents, after unemployment. Some 72 percent of respondents said they thought reducing water flow would hurt their interests, a sentiment that cut across party allegiances.

Observers say that the waterway fight is part of a wider problem, and argued that Spain’s farming model, which consumes 80 percent of the country’s water resources, needs to be revamped.

“We need to consider the kind of agriculture that is being practiced in the medium term, given the scenarios we are facing of a major drop in water resources,” said Salvador Sanchez, a senior researcher at the Spanish National Research Council. “Agricultural activity is being maintained in a way that is disproportionate in hydrological terms.”

He said the Tagus River is set to lose 15 percent of its volume over the next 20 to 30 years, reflecting declining rainfall rates, particularly in central and southern Spain.

“This conflict needs to be resolved,” he said. “There is less and less water, there is more and more pressure on the available supply and we need innovative water management strategies.”