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Date Published: 28/02/2024

Extraordinary drought to be declared in Murcia this Friday

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Water restrictions will be placed on the Segura basin area, which may be increased if it doesn’t rain in March

Extraordinary drought to be declared in Murcia this Friday

The president of the Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura (CHS), Mario Urrea, has announced this Wednesday February 28 that, for the first time, an “extraordinary drought” situation will be declared in the Segura River Basin, a hydrographical area that encompasses almost all of the Region of Murcia, as well as parts of Alicante, Albacete and Andalucía.

This decision was taken by the recently constituted Permanent Drought Commission, and will be made official at the beginning of March, assuming that the water situation will not change drastically from what it is now, which is likely as no rain is forecast until Sunday at the earliest, and even then not much.

Being under a situation of “extraordinary drought” will mean that there will be average water restrictions of 25% for the whole basin area, 20% for traditional irrigation and 30% for non-traditional irrigation. The declaration also entails the opening up of ground wells in Calasparra to provide more water.

The only such well that currently has permission to open from the Ministry of the Environment is the Sinclinal de Calasparra, from which it is estimated that they can extract 31.5 cubic hectometres (hm3) of water.

However, not all the Segura Basin area is in the same situation, and some parts have more water than others. To avoid the declaration of drought in the entire basin, the CHS will separate the territorial units so that the headwaters, the right bank and the left bank will be outside this drought declaration. The Vega Alta, Vega Media and Vega Baja areas, where 80% of the water demands are, will be affected by the drought declaration.

Urrea also explained that they will meet again at the end of March to analyse the state of the drought and decide whether to maintain or increase the restrictions. These can reach a maximum of 50% and he estimates that, if they do have to extend the restrictions, it will go up to around 40%. On the positive side, rainfall is expected in March, April and May, so they are confident of some improvement by then.

The water stored in reservoirs in the area is close to 19% of the total capacity; 98hm3 of this is stored in the basin, which is 230hm3 less than the average of the last 10 years. Meanwhile, the subsystem of the Tagus-Segura water transfer pipe, which transfers water down to the southeast from the Tagus Basin in central and western Spain, is at 75hm3, but is waiting to receive a further 80hm3.

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Image 1: Archive

Image 2: CHS

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