Water Policy and Management in Spain

Francisco González-Gómez, Miguel A. García-Rubio, Jorge Guardiola

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781134921577
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Spain is facing an increasingly difficult situation in terms of water stress. This is an issue that is due mostly to poor management practices in all sectors. Large amounts of water have been used for agricultural purposes at very low prices for too long; there is an uncontrolled use of most aquifers in rural areas which result from ineffective control by the public administration; per capita consumption continues increasing as well as water used for industrial and energy generation, the construction and tourism sectors and for recreation activities. In fact, they have all exerted additional pressure on available water resources. In order to face the above challenges, water policy has made a gradual shift towards more rational and sustainable management of water resources. This has also been influenced by the European Water Framework Directive about which, as the book discusses, there are both myths and misunderstandings.

This book analyses the very complex position of all sectors in the country, the alternatives available and the challenges ahead. In so doing, it makes an important contribution to the literature on water resources management.

This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of Water Resources Development.

Introduction: Water Policy and Management in Spain

FRANCISCO GONZÁLEZ-GÓMEZ, MIGUEL A. GARCÍA-RUBIO & JORGE GUARDIOLA
Department of Applied Economics and Water Research Institute, University of Granada, Spain

Access to water and how this resource is managed is arousing increasing interest worldwide. International Organizations are demanding greater attention be paid to all the problems related to water management and the OECD has identi ed water as one of the four critical environmental priorities for the forthcoming two decades (OECD, 2008). One of the greatest challenges faced by the international community is dealing with rising levels of water stress. It has been estimated that by 2030, demand and supply imbalances will severely affect almost half of the world’s population (OECD, 2008). Demand for water is expected to increase in forthcoming years as a result of global population growth, changes in lifestyle and heightened industrialization in developing countries, among other factors (Biswas and Tortajada, 2009). In addition, climate change will further aggravate water stress in many regions in the world as argued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Bates et al., 2008).

In Spain, water scarcity is an important challenge both for water policy and management. Approximately three-quarters of the Spanish territory currently suffers from severe water shortages and the situation is not expected to improve in the future. According to the European Environment Agency (2010), average temperatures are expected to increase, particularly in the Mediterranean basin, while the availability of water is expected to decrease. Droughts are expected to increase in recurrence and intensity, especially in Southern Europe and particularly in summer.

Among many consequences, this pressure on water resources may lead to frequent disputes between different water users and can also transcend to the regional government. In some cases, the con icts between autonomous regions in Spain regarding water competences have even jeopardized the principle of basin unity. However, water management is a complex issue that goes beyond balancing supply with the various demands, including the environment. Aquatic ecosystems and their surrounding areas also suײַ er environmental damage as a result of water stress. Moreover, the excessive pressure on water resources, poor coverage of wastewater treatment and the contamination problems associated to farming activities are all behind the deterioration of water quality. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly evident that water challenges are not exclusively related to quantity, but also of quality. What is more, the integrated management of water resources should include ecosystems as legitimate water users as they play an important role as providers of environmental services.

One important question to ask is how this situation came about and why so much of the Spanish territory is currently under severe water stress. The rst step prior to proposing solutions must be to identify the causes of this situation. The most immediate answer is attributing Spain’s water problems to the country’s culture and customs. Although it may seem quite simple, this poses a serious problem for decision making: breaking with tradition is not an easy task, especially considering that some measures encouraging change are unpopular and must be promoted by politicians.

Spain has traditionally been devoted to agriculture, which remains the country’s main water user. Consequently, one of the pillars of agricultural policy has been to increase the area of irrigated land—to which illegal irrigation should be added even if this is a topic that is seldom talked about. Furthermore, although the value of water is high for this use, it has never been an important part of the cost structure in agriculture and prices for the delivery of the service and the resource itself remains heavily subsidized. As a result, large amounts of water have been allocated to this sector at a very low cost and for a long period of time, too long in fact to make sizeable change in just a few years. In 2010, the area of irrigated land amounted to 3,407,953 ha, representing only about 13.6% of the total agricultural surface area. The agricultural sector is therefore far from complying with the principle of cost recovery promoted by the Water Framework Directive (WFD), whereby prices should reflect the costs of the service in full, including those provided by the environment.

In addition to this, the absence of effective control by the public administration has led to uncontrolled use of some aquifers in rural areas. This is partially due to the fact that until 1985, groundwater belonged to the owner of the land where that source was located. The situation, nevertheless, did not improve much with the Water Act 29/1985 and the subsequent Legislative Royal Decree 1/2001 that approved the amended text of the Water Act. Although both regulate the use of groundwater, nowadays the exploitation of aquifers is not under control since authorities are not aware of the number of active wells or the amount of water being extracted from them (Llamas, 2008).

Although agriculture is the largest water consumer, there has been a marked increase in demand for other uses over the last few decades. Per capita consumption growth, industrial activity, hydropower generation, construction, as well as tourism and leisure activities have all exerted additional pressure on available water resources. It is also fair to say that water has not been used rationally in urban areas. In this sense, it has been commonplace to use drinking water for cleaning streets, washing private vehicles, watering gardens with plant species not suited to water-scarce conditions and filling private swimming pools.

In order to meet increasing water demand, the Spanish government adopted a strategy for the best part of last century that involved building large water infrastructures to increase the availability of water resources. Water policy in the 20th century was led by engineers and based primarily on the performance of reservoirs and dams, directly targeting water availability. As a result of this approach, Spain is ranked fourth in the world in terms of the number of dams operating (Martínez-Cortina, 2010).

Nevertheless, conventionally enlarging the amount of water resources, namely by building new dams and reservoirs, is no longer a viable proposition. It is already assumed that the existence of physical and environmental constraints would make it impossible for new dams and reservoirs to increase water availability. Consequently, this management strategy is now considered obsolete. Since the 1980s, water policy has undergone a gradual shift towards a more rational and sustainable management of water resources.

Having abandoned the old policy of building large dams and reservoirs, Spain’s current National Water Plan contemplates a series of actions based on water saving, purifying, reutilizing and desalinizing. It also provides measures to strengthen public control over the use and quality of water. For instance, the Emergency Plan for the Modernization of Irrigation 2006 – 2008 reflects the Spanish Government’s intention for agriculture to use water resources more rationally.

As such, the various government-promoted measures aimed at modernizing irrigation systems have been the main instrument to rationalize the use of water in agriculture. The objectives of these actions include increasing efficiency in water consumption, which involves obtaining a higher yield of production per unit of water and promoting water savings. The ultimate goal is to reduce the amount of water wasted without diminishing agricultural output. These measures foster the introduction of technological innovations to achieve total control of the water used and also to encourage irrigation associations to make automated and remote control use of irrigation systems. However, the high costs incurred by the public administration to use irrigation technology more efficiently, has contributed to only a modest reduction in irrigation water consumption (Fuentes, 2011).

In the future, the aim is to give continuity to the Emergency Plan for the Modernization of Irrigation by launching the National Strategy for Sustainable Modernization of Irrigation, Timeframe 2015. The draft strategy highlights the government’s intention to further boost the modernization of irrigation in Spain and contemplates the objectives of promoting savings, enhancing efficient water use, improving the use of alternative water resources, and promoting sustainable and environmentally friendly agriculture among other measures (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Medio Rural y Marino, 2010). It is certainly necessary to continue implementing plans along the lines and in support of the actions undertaken by the Spanish government to achieve water savings in agriculture. Priority actions should aim at reducing areas still using gravity irrigation systems (1,043,704 has in 2010, representing 31% of total irrigated land) and at creating pipe systems that minimize water losses.

As regards saving water in urban areas, there has been remarkable investment in awareness campaigns, especially in the years with less rainfall when there were frequent water restrictions during the summer. In addition, it is worth highlighting the incorporation of means to save water and control its use in newly constructed buildings in the Technical Building Code (TBC), approved by Royal Decree (RD) 314/2006. Flow reducers and toilet cisterns with dual flushing are becoming increasingly widespread in Spanish households.

However, water tariffs for urban users (despite an increasing proportion being managed in consumption blocks) are so low that they do not constitute an effective tool to encourage responsible use of water. In Spain, the water bill represents only about 0.4% of disposable income (OECD, 2010). Furthermore, the low price of water is not an incentive for more sustainable resource management on behalf of water utilities. Unaccounted-for water in urban networks represents approximately 26% of the water supplied (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2011). The opportunity cost of undertaking work for network improvement is higher than the price of water (González-Gómez et al., 2011).

In addition to introducing measures to improve the management of water resources, the Government of Spain made a commitment in this century to increase water supply from unconventional sources. In recent years, Spain’s water policy has been summarized in the AGUA Programme (Actions for Water Management and Use), emphasizing the construction of desalination plants, mainly on the Mediterranean coast. The AGUA Programme, as a viable alternative to the Ebro transfer referred to in the 2001 National Hydrological Plan, implied a new paradigm for water policy. The AGUA Programme foresaw an estimated total investment of 3,900 million euros for the whole period of implementation, after which Spain would have become the fourth country in the world in terms of installed capacity and the fifth in the number of desalination plants. However, desalination has been presented as the new cornucopia even when it has proven not to be exempt of problems and is not supported by all sectors of society.

Furthermore, Spain has decades of experience in water reuse and is one of the countries in the world where this practice is most widespread even when it is limited to certain sectors and activities. The 1620/2007 Royal Decree passed on December 7th established the legal regime for reusing drinking water, prohibiting water reuse in Spain for certain uses, including human consumption, the food industry and hospitals. As such, recycled water is mostly employed for agricultural and environmental purposes, a volume estimated at 368 hm³ in 2008, the equivalent of about 10% of the country’s drinking water. According to the National Water Reuse Plan, this figure is expected to reach 1,380 hm³ per year by 2015 (Moren-Abat, 2011).

Bearing in mind the scenario described above, it is obvious that water management in Spain will play an increasingly important role in the country’s political, economic and social development in the forthcoming years. This book reviews some of the issues that have emerged regarding water policy and management in the country. Generally speaking, it addresses several problems to be confronted, and proposes a series of possible solutions. Clearly the situation is much more complex and extensive than this book would appear to suggest; nevertheless the selected research papers reflect a representative sample of Spain’s main water policy and management challenges.

This book opens with two contributions on the WFD, an EU standard that conditions and delimits the performance of water policy and water management in EU member states. Spanish Government Water Director, Marta Moren-Abat, provides an institutional view on the issue, emphasizing how this environmental standard targets resource quality more than quantity and in which the influence of the proposal’s initiators Central and Northern European countries figures prominently. The author lists many of the WFD’s shortcomings in protecting waters and fostering its sustainable use. In reference to the situation in Spain, the author highlights the complexity of the design, and the hampering impact on the process rigid deadlines for the preparation of water plans have, and a lack of financial resources due to the current economic crisis. However, the chapter’s assessment of the WFD remains positive as the Spanish Water Director maintains that the standard incorporates modern principles into water management and provides an opportunity for the country to improve on its water policy.

Francisco Cabezas presents an outspoken criticism of the myths and misunderstandings surrounding the WFD in Spain. He maintains that the framework directive is clearly environmental and ignores other considerations in the water industry that are already contemplated in Spanish legislation. Additionally, the author highlights that the WFD does not address the key issues of water scarcity or the impact of climate change on water resources faced in Mediterranean countries. In this regard, it is argued the WFD fails to accommodate for the changes required to improve water management and governance under water stress conditions. To address these shortcomings, the author recommends preparing a directive on Euro-Mediterranean water.

The chapter by María Teresa Sánchez-Martínez, Noelina Rodríguez-Ferrero and Manuel Salas-Velasco discusses how different responsibilities concerning water management are distributed among various institutions and draw attention to two prominent issues. Firstly, there seems to be an excessive fragmentation of responsibility levels and actors involved in water management in Spain. The problems associated with coordinating several organisms and overlapping responsibilities can even bring decision-making processes to a halt. Secondly, the Spanish public administration seems to be facing a paradox. As stipulated by the WFD, EU countries recognize river basins as the unit for carrying out water policy measures and management. This, the authors argue, constitutes an unsuitable model for Spain due to its territorial division for water planning and one such arrangement that could lead to a breakaway from the management model established in the country since 1926.

The next chapter is an example of how water planning in Spain is implemented using the environmental guidelines set out in the WFD. Researchers Julio Berbel, Solveig Kolberg and Julia Martin-Ortega assess and discuss the Draft River Basin Plan (RBP) and the Program of Measures for Andalusia’s Guadalquivir River Basin, the most water stressed EU region. Both instruments are designed to harmonize the need to ensure future water supply in the river basin, along with the need to maintain the good ecological status of water bodies. The Draft RPH is presented as a sustainable management tool based on the economic and technical measures to control demand, and the fulfilment of wastewater treatment objectives. Yet, critical points in the Draft RPH remain, such as the serious delays in achieving urban wastewater treatment, a complex institutional design that hinders cost recovery, the need to increase water savings in irrigation, and potential territorial disputes between old water rights holders.

José A. Antonio Gómez-Limón and Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo reflect on the impact on Spain’s water policy, any improvement in agricultural water management will have, given that this sector receives about 60% of all distributed water. The sector is in the midst of a transition, as it has to face the twofold challenge of decreased EU Common Agricultural Policy grants and subsidies, and the stricter environmental requirements contemplated by the WFD. In this context, the authors make a case for the improvement of Spain’s irrigation systems, helping improve economic performance, increase the efficiency of water use and reduce pollution. Nevertheless, it is yet to resolve how the costs of a transition towards a more efficient agricultural use of water will be bore and how to reduce the sector’s negative environmental impacts. This is a delicate issue in Spain since the agricultural sector has long been heavily subsidized and, in addition, water prices for agricultural uses have always been far below the real costs. Public incentives and assistance programs and the assumed degree of involvement of a sector outstand as key elements that could lead to the achievement of the objectives established for the River Basin Plans.

Moreover, water quality remains another major problem in Spain. Along much of the Mediterranean coast, the use of fertilizers and excessive pressure on water resources in some river basins causes high nitrates and phosphorus concentrations. Encarna Esteban and José Albiac make an interesting proposal to reduce the levels of nonpoint pollution. The authors question why water policies seeking to reduce the degradation of water resources have failed, namely those economic instruments compensating for stakeholders’ private benefits, and subsidies seeking to encourage investment in contamination-reducing technologies. The reason, it is argued, is a lack of biophysical information and the strategic behaviour exposed by stakeholders. But considering that water is a common good, cooperation could prove to be the solution as exemplified in the case of Spain’s Eastern La Mancha aquifer, which is cared for by farmers working together.

The chapter by Francisco González-Gómez, Miguel A. García-Rubio and Jorge Guardiola opens a section devoted to politics and the management of urban water services. The study provides an overview of various issues on the topic, such as service externalization, water pricing and quality, unaccounted-for water and sanitation, and water treatment. Throughout the text, the authors describe several aspects of each of the foregoing issues and highlight the areas yet to be addressed and the challenges awaiting solutions formulated by stakeholders with expertise in the industry. They highlight Spain’s need to create a regulatory body that, among other things, could promote efficiency among companies in the industry; to target objective levels of water that is unaccounted-for by the networks; and setting cost-recovery water prices or permit for greater wastewater treatment coverage.

Parting from different perspectives, the next two chapters focus on equitable water access and the price to be paid for residential use. In their study, Maria A. García-Valiñas, Roberto Martínez-Espiñeira and Francisco Gon...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Foreword
• 1. Introduction: Water Policy and Management in Spain
• 2. The Challenges of Implementing the Water Framework Directive in Spain
• 3. The European Water Framework Directive: A Framework?
• 4. Who Manages Spain's Water Resources? The Political and Administrative Division of Water Management
• 5. Assessment of the Draft Hydrological Basin Plan of the Guadalquivir River Basin (Spain)
• 6. Irrigated Agriculture in Spain: Diagnosis and Prescriptions for Improved Governance
• 7. Assessment of Nonpoint Pollution Instruments: The Case of Spanish Agriculture
• 8. Urban Water Service Policies and Management in Spain: Pending Issues
• 9. Is the Pricing of Urban Water Services Justifiably Perceived as Unequal among Spanish Cities?
• 10. Tariffs for Urban Water Services in Spain: Household Size and Equity
• 11. Groundwater: The Invisible Resource
• 12. Evaluation of Spain's Water-Energy Nexus
• 13. Desalination in Spain: A Growing Alternative for Water Supply
• Index