Resumé en anglais - Summary in English
How to remedy a water shortage in the region of Barcelona?
Catalonia has recently faced one of the most serious droughts in its recent history. Indeed, in February 2008, the 5.5 million inhabitants of Barcelona underwent severe water restrictions: they were not allowed to use water for cleaning their cars or filling their swimming pools. Several consecutive years of drought, sprawling urbanization which needs an ever greater water supply, and the development of intensive agriculture and mass tourism, both great water consumers, have contributed to the recent shortage.
On 2008, April 18, in order to meet a demand for 30 million cubic meter of water per month from Barcelona, the president of the Spanish Government Jose Luis Zapatero approved a plan consisting in building pipes from Tarragona to Barcelona which will provide the latter with a part of the waters of the river Ebro. Furthermore, tankers from the desalination plant of Carboneras in Andalusia, from Tarragona and from Marseille had come to Barcelona’s assistance by mid May.
However, heavy rainfall was recorded on Catalonia in May 2008. Enough to put an end to the state of emergency declared in February, and enough too to inflame a highly-politicized debate whose roots date back to many years ago: water management. The Spanish government is banking on the desalination of sea water, but not without coming up against some obstacles: the plant of El Prat de Llobregat is expected to supply Barcelona daily with 200,000 cubic meter of water by June 2009. The circumstances also revived a 60-year old idea: an ambitious scheme consisting in building an underground aqueduct called LRC (Languedoc-Roussillon-Catalonia) in order to bring a part of the Rhone’s waters as far as Barcelona.
Catalonia and Spain have disclosed that they were totally unprepared for such a lack of water. The controversy deals with the means to remedy a possible water shortage in Catalonia, a region where rainfall has been historically low, and particularly in Barcelona. We intend to examine each of the solutions proposed, as well as the technical, environmental, economic and political questions raised.