Between rising mercury and cracked soils, Spain is facing an extreme weather episode. Global warming is hitting Europe hard and Madrid is on the front line. How extreme is this episode of drought and heat? In what areas is it dramatic? 20 minutes takes stock for you.
What is going on ?
Spain is suffocating. The country has been suffering from an episode of drought for thirty-two months. Three years of below-average rainfall have left soils parched and bear the marks of climate change. Catalonia is the most affected region and is experiencing “one of the worst droughts in the last 50 years”, regional president Pere Aragonès, a moderate separatist, insisted last week. Due to a lack of rainfall, reservoirs – which store rainwater so that it can be used in drier months – are at just 26% of their capacity in the region, according to local authorities.
And the arrival of an exceptionally early heat wave in the country risks aggravating the situation. According to the meteorological agency, temperatures could approach 40°C in the south of the country on Thursday and Friday. At the height of this generalized heat wave, the average temperature in the country will be between 6 and 10°C above seasonal norms.
But in some places, they will even exceed “15 to 20 degrees” the normal values of the end of April, specified on Twitter the spokesman of the agency, Ruben del Campo. “These high temperatures will also be accompanied by an almost total absence of precipitation over the next week, making it increasingly likely that April 2023 will be the driest April on record in Spain” , worries AEMET, the Spanish meteorological institute.
How is the lack of water dramatic in Spain?
According to the UN, nearly 75% of Spanish territory is now in the process of desertification due to global warming. This situation jeopardizes the agricultural sector, the pillar of the Spanish economy, which absorbs more than 80% of the country’s water resources.
According to Coag, the main farmers’ union, 60% of Spanish agricultural land is currently “asphyxiated” by the lack of rainfall, which has already caused “irreversible damage” to 3.5 million hectares. of cereals. “The drought is causing a real drama for thousands of irrigating farmers across Spain,” Juan Valero de Palma, from the National Federation of Irrigation Organizations, told a press conference in Madrid on Tuesday.
In addition, the authorities believe that the fire season, previously limited to summer, now runs from spring to autumn in the country. “Today and the next three days, the extreme risk of fires will become widespread” in Spain, warns the Spanish meteorological institute on Wednesday. According to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), Spain is already on a record for burned areas since the beginning of the year, with 54,000 hectares affected on April 23, against 17,126 hectares at the end of the year. same date in 2022, a record year for fires.
What is the reaction of the Spanish government?
The Spanish government announced on Tuesday a series of tax boosts for its farmers, hit by this historic drought which threatens a large part of the harvest. The Spanish executive has notably planned a 25% drop in income tax, which should benefit 800,000 professionals. At the same time, Madrid has asked the European Commission to activate the “crisis reserve” of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to help its farmers.
“We are facing an exceptional situation” which implies a “rapid reaction from the European Commission”, justified the Spanish Minister of Agriculture to the press after the Council of Ministers. Luis Planas, who formalized his request in a letter to European Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, did not specify the amount he hoped to see released for Spanish farmers. The “crisis reserve” of the EU, intended to respond to possible disruptions of the agricultural markets, is endowed with 450 million euros. And she could find herself increasingly in demand.