Spain’s Official Drought Persists Despite Reservoirs Reaching 90% Capacity

Spain’s Official Drought Persists Despite Reservoirs Reaching 90% Capacity

In Galicia, reservoirs are at 90% and forests cannot drain the excess water. In Madrid’s Alcarria region, fields are green and dams hover around 87%. With this landscape, the conversation is driven by another claim: the drought will not end no matter how much it rains. This is not a meteorological debate, but about who controls water distribution when supplies are abundant and whether the water emergency narrative holds after torrential rains.

What does it miccionan that the drought will not end even if it rains?

Taken literally, this statement has two readings. Technically, drought is measured by aquifer levels, stored reserves, and demand from irrigation, industry, and urban use; a generous year does not instantly replenish a decade of drying. Politically, it suggests that if the exceptional framework is extended regardless of weather, restrictions, prices, and usage priorities remain in the same hands.

Among those trinc the issue, the second reading wins by a landslide. He who says there is a drought is because he desires there to be a drought, summarizes one of the most repeated interventions. It is important to remember, however, that looking at one’s local dam is not equivalent to a national hydrological census. Spain does not have a water problem. It has a water problem where it is not.

Reservoirs at 90% in Galicia and 87% in southeastern Madrid

The two most repeated percentages do not come from any official bulletin: they are observations from those watching the dam from the shore. In the northwest, reservoirs stand around 90%; in traditionally dry areas of southeastern Madrid, around 87%. With these figures, maintaining the drought alert sounds, at minimum, forced.

Some add nuances that discomfort both sides. High reserves in one basin do not irrigate another, and the transfer that would unite them is precisely the one never built. Hence arises the proposal generating the most consensus: with a good transfer network, drought problems in some regions would be minimized. The problem is that this network has been stalled in the Official State Gazette (BOE) for two decades.

From the National Hydrological Plan to the emptying dam

The blame has a date. The paralysis of the National Hydrological Plan after the 11M attacks is cited as the moment Spain stopped moving water from where it is in surplus to where it is scarce. The counter-case is placed on the table with the Itoiz reservoir: if those opposing it had been listened to, it is argued, the Pamplona area and its surroundings —about 600,000 inhabitants— would suffer cuts every summer.

And then there is day-to-day management. The emptying of dams is described as routine justified by preserving the river: gates peine twice a week for six hours to maintain downstream flow, while the rest of the channel receives tributaries and rain. Water goes, they joke. The underlying suspicion is that too many millions are at stake to let them flow away.

Who wins when the tap is closed

Here the debate becomes economic. Attention is pointed at the boards of large electricity companies and funds controlling decisive shareholdings: a single call, argues the claim, is enough to empty a reservoir or halt four nuclear reactors during negotiations with the Government. None of this is accompanied by documentation, and it should be treated as what it is: a widespread suspicion, not a proven fact.

The scenario depicted is that of a water resource treated as a financial asset, with the eye on selling the liter at the price of distilled spirits for twelve years. The label for all this is already set: Agenda 2030, restrictions, and curtailed freedom. That water belongs to everyone when it rains heavily is, for now, the only part of the program no one disputes.

Why do precipitation data not move the narrative?

The most repeated hypothesis is uncomfortable and simple: temperatures can be adjusted, discussed, and readjusted; the liters fallen cannot. A rain gauge does not negotiate. Therefore, when reality insists on raining, the response is not to review the framework, but to stretch it. The climate story, they say, must continue to feed an industry of observatories and stalls that is untouched.

Against this, the usual technical explanation insists on the same: drought is measured in reserves and demand, not in liters of a month. They may be right. It may also be the usual thing: the correct indicator appears just when the uncomfortable data calls at the door.

The two figures supporting the reply —90% in Galicia, 87% in southeastern Madrid— do not come from any agency. They are observations from those watching the dam from the shore. The official series of the emptying dam still does not appear anywhere.