The conservation organization SEO/Birdlife has celebrated the new water regulation of the Government that implies more control over the volumes and flows of some reservoirs in Spain. The organization ensures that introducing criteria of rationality and sustainability in the conservation of aquatic ecosystems “must be the basis of a policy that seeks to align with the environmental objectives set by Europe & rdquor; in terms of hydrological planning and an adequate ecological transition.
At the end of December, the Council of Ministers approved a royal decree that updates the Hydrological Planning Regulation, which is thus adjusted to the European Green Deal, considers climate change and includes the regulation of special drought plans.
This new regulation, the main regulatory reference in terms of hydrological planning, thus modifies the one that was approved in 2007 and does so to adapt to national and international water policies adopted in recent yearsaccording to the Ministry for Ecological Transition in a statement.
However, government measures have also generated controversysince Spanish farmers estimate that excessive regulation of reservoirs and, above all, of the ecological flow of rivers, wetlands and aquifers, will leave irrigated agriculture practically without resources, condemning it to use desalinated water, whose price is prohibitive when the price for the electric bill skyrockets.
Specifically, for a few months the rise in prices and the expected increase in the ecological flow of the Tagus River in Aranjuez and Toledo up to 8 m³/second has the irrigators of Murcia, Almería and Alicante on a war footing, who see the danger the Tagus-Segura transfer.
On the other hand, for SEO/BirdLife “the measures presented, although twelve years and two hydrological planning cycles late, are welcome and are on the right track.”
Thus, the organization points out that “the task must now go further, at the gates of the approval of the latest hydrological plans of the Water Framework Directive, The immediate integration of the water needs of the Natura 2000 Network, which depends on water in the hydrological plans, must be assumed“.
“The current hydrological planning continues without internalizing the important role and obligations of the Water Framework Directive in the conservation of the Natura 2000 Network, and These emergency measures are a reflection of the absolute lack of governance in the matter and the weakness of the current model of water exploitation, whose fragility will become more apparent in the coming years due to the effects of climate change, with serious consequences for biodiversity and the general interest & rdquor ;, adds the entity.
SEO/BirdLife requests, and remember that it is a legal obligation, that in the exploitation of all the reservoirs of the Spanish state “the water needs of the species and habitats of the Natura 2000 Network are ensuredas well as a flow regime that allows the proper functioning of biological processes in aquatic ecosystems & rdquor ;.
For this reason, the NGO, despite welcoming the proposed measures, regrets that they are limited solely and exclusively to those reservoirs greater than 50 hm3 of total capacityand whose main uses are not supply, irrigation and other agricultural uses.
The inadequate exploitation of many reservoirs in Spain, especially for hydroelectric or irrigation use, generates serious environmental problems that make it difficult to comply with water and nature conservation directivesboth in terms of quantity and quality of the resource it is supposed to protect.
“It should not be forgotten that ecological flows do not have the character of use and should be considered as a restriction that is imposed in general on exploitation systems”, they point out. For this reason, SEO/BirdLife requests that we go further, definitively and immediately apply an ecological flow regime to all reservoirs and exploitation systems, regardless of their size and use.
SEO/BirdLife requests the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) to introduce the assessment of the effects on the Red Natura 2000 spaces in the open investigation on the inadequate exploitation of several reservoirs in Spain, since the conservation objectives of The habitats and species that protect these spaces are part of the environmental limits that must be established in the exploitation of these reservoirs.
The organization points out that, if the necessary conservation of rivers and wetlands is not assumed in the exploitation of reservoirs, a true transition will not be possible.