Virginia Barcones highlights the importance of the Douro Special Drought Plan in an increasingly difficult climate environment to predict

• The Government delegate has attended the presentation of the strategic lines of the PES carried out by the CHD • The Plan 2023-2030 incorporates drought indicators in different points of the Douro basin

June 1, 2023.- The delegate of the Government in Castilla y León, Virginia Barcones, has attended the presentation in Valladolid of the strategic lines of the Special Drought Plan (PES) of the hydrographic basin of the Douro 2024-2030, presentation made by the CHD, agency that depends on the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.

The fundamental objective of the PES del Duero, which until June 30 is in public consultation, is the management of episodes of prolonged drought and shortages of water for the economic activities of the hydrographic demarcation.

Virginia Barcones has meant the importance of PES 24-30 in a climate change environment in which we are increasingly exposed to “difficult to predict climatic situations such as drought”. The government delegate in Castilla y León, who recalled that last April was the driest in rainfall since records are available, added that it is in this context that the work of the CHD has “special relevance.” He also encouraged the Communities of Irrigators and Opas to collaborate in the elaboration of the PES 2024-2030 because they are the ones who best “know our fields”.

The delegate of the Government of Castilla y León was accompanied by the president of the Hydrographic Confederation of the Douro, María Jesús Lafuente: the subdelegate of the Government in Valladolid, Alicia Villar, and representatives of Communities of Irrigators and Agricultural Professional Organizations.

For her part, the president of the CHD, María Jesús Lafuente, stressed that “with this review and improvement of the PES, it is expected to face with greater guarantee the cyclical problems derived from these episodes of drought, whose frequency and intensity tends to increase in the context of climate change that affects our country and, therefore, the Douro”.

The new PES del Duero incorporates the following modifications:

• A new territorial unit of scarcity is established in the Tuerto subsystem, in the province of León, which operates independently of the Orbigo.
• New drought stations are added to the drought indicators to improve drought characterization, such as Tardesillas in Soria and Robleda in Salamanca.
• The Bustillo del Páramo rain gauge is incorporated into the Órbigo drought indicator, replacing the Villares de Órbigo rain gauge.
• Included in the Arlanza drought indicator is the Palacios de la Sierra capacity station that replaces the capacity of Salas de los Infantes.
• The prolonged drought thresholds have been revised by expanding rainfall and hydrological series that incorporate data from recent years (2017/18-2021/22).
• The Arlanza’s scarcity indicator is reviewed, which, once the Castrovid reservoir enters the exploitation phase, incorporates the accumulated volume of this reservoir.
• It includes measures of scarcity in alert and emergency for the four masses of groundwater in poor quantitative condition.
• All the accumulated experience of the droughts suffered by the basin in 2017, 2019 and 2022 is incorporated into the measures.

Regarding the content of the PES, it highlights the importance of implementing a set of actions that allow us to anticipate episodes of drought and promote measures that guarantee the availability of water required to ensure the health and life of the citizens. The PES also seeks to minimize the economic impacts it may have on, for example, the agricultural sector, but does not forget its environmental impact, as it tries to avoid and minimize the effects of drought on the state of water bodies.

Situation of the reservoirs in the Douro basin

The reservoirs of the basin managed by the Douro Hydrographic Confederation today have a reservoir of 1938.2 hm³ of bottled water, which represents 67.8% of its total capacity. A value that is 11 percentage points less than a year ago and 18 below the average of the last decade.

According to the latest drought report as of April 30, all systems in the basin remain normal in terms of the prolonged drought indicator, while the Pisuerga goes on alert and the Carrión and Cega go on pre-alert in terms of scarcity, adding to Bajo Duero and Torío Bernesga. In a few days, the monthly report will be published as of May 31, which is expected to worsen the indicator of scarcity in the aforementioned areas.