IWRM status in the Tagus basin, Spain STRIVER TECHNICAL BRIEF

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1 STRIVER TECHNICAL BRIEF Strategy and methodology for improved Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) An integrated interdisciplinary assessment in four twinning river basins TB No. 11 IWRM status in the Tagus basin, Spain An overview of the main conclusions of the STRIVER project in the Spanish part of the Tagus Basin, regarding water availability, water allocation, water prizing, water quality and pollution, environmental impact and ecological flows, institutional aspects, law enforcement, implementation of the EU Water Frame Directive, information and public participation, and capacity building. The STRIVER Brief series translate the results from the EC FP6-funded STRIVER project into practical and useful information for policy makers and water managers

2 IWRM status in the Tagus basin, Spain Santiago Beguería, Sergio M. Vicente-Serrano, J. Ignacio López-Moreno, Noemí Lana-Renault, José María García-Ruiz. (Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones, CSIC, Spain), António Betâmio de Almeida, Maria Manuela Portela, Marta Machado (CEHIDRO/IST, Portugal) Abstract An overview of the main conclusions of the STRIVER project in the Spanish part of the Tagus Basin, regarding water availability, water allocation, water prizing, water quality and pollution, environmental impact and ecological flows, institutional aspects, law enforcement, implementation of the EU Water Frame Directive, information and public participation, and capacity building. References Ministerio de Medio Ambiente 1999, Plan Hidrológico de la Cuenca del Tajo, Madrid (Engl: Tagus Basin Hydrologic Plan). Plan Hidrológico Nacional, Law 10/2001, modified in 2004 and Water Law29/1985, modified by Law 46/19 Introduction This report summarizes the major outcomes of the analysis of the status of IWRM in the Spanish part of the Tagus basin. The conclusions presented on this document are based on our own analysis of hydro-climatologic data from public information sources and the main documents regulating IWRM in Spain (see references above), plus the information provided by the stakeholders during the I and II Tagus Stakeholder Meetings and in the focus groups meetings (see fact box 1). A total of ten issues were selected, ranging from natural aspects such as the water availability and quality to the institutional legal and social framework of IWRM in the basin. Although some of the principles of IWRM were not accounted for in the current Basin Plan, the new plan that is now being elaborated represents a good opportunity for implementing them. Fact box 1 Stakeholder participation in the framework of the STRIVER project Promoting stakeholder participation from the earliest stages of the project was a key objective in STRIVER. Thus, a total or three stakeholder meetings were held at different stages of the project, ensuring a fluent feedback between scientists and stakeholders. The meetings, held in Toledo (December 2006), Lisbon (February 2008) and Madrid (April 2009), brought together stakeholders from Spain and Portugal, representing several groups from the managers to the users of water. In addition, five focus group meetings were held in Madrid during 2008, with groups of water managers and users. During these meetings, the participants were asked to freely discuss about a series of general topics related to IWRM in the basin. This experience raised a series of new questions and points of view that enriched further the information obtained by other means. STRIVER TECHNICAL BRIEF / ISSUE NO. 11 2

3 Issue 1. Water availability A reliable estimation of the availability of regulated water in a basin must be in the foundations of any water resources management plan. Performing such estimation is a highly technical task, and must address not only the average annual and monthly volumes, but also the expected inter-annual oscillations and the likelihood of extreme events. It must also provide future scenarios associated to different likelihoods, provided the current knowledge about possible changes in the climate system and also in the land uses in the basin. At this respect, the water allocation scheme in the Tagus Basin Hydrologic Plan is based on long-term average values, and neither the inter-annual variability nor the likely future trends are considered in an explicit manner. Adaptation of the plan to the specific circumstances of each year is done following an heuristic approach based on experience. The influence of changes in land use and land cover in the headwaters is another issue not considered in the Basin Plan, although there are evidences of its importance in other Iberian basins. In the Tagus, there are evidences of an increase of the vegetation cover due to the abandonment of traditional forest logging activities and a decline of grazing in the headwater areas. There are, however, no studies about the influence of these changes on runoff production and hence on the rivers discharge. It is interesting to note that future problems in water availability due to natural or seminatural drivers was not identified as a primary problem by the stakeholders, despite the scientific evidences about its importance. Issue 2. Water allocation, including equity issues Guaranteeing a balanced territorial and sector balance in the access to water is a key objective of the Tagus Basin Plan. Water allocation in the basin is defined in the current Hydrological Plan of the Tagus Basin and is the sole responsibility of the Tagus Basin Administration Office. The regional governments, however, are taking more responsibilities in the last years, what has led to the arousal of conflicts between regions. Local governments such as Madrid Region, where the expansion of urbanization and speculation with the soil is the greatest, and power stations, play a major role in water decisions. Active participation of the all the concerned sectors within the basin, encouraged by the Water framework directive and the A.G.U.A. Programme, should balance the sectoral weight in future water management. As for now, the Basin Plan includes a description of the different water users, and they are sorted according to their priority for water allocation. There is a pre-defined water allocation for each user that is applied during normal conditions. In case of a hydrological drought, limitations for water used are established, and the priority of users is modified. Possible conflicts arising from the shortage of water are usually solved at the political level, in some occasions even in the State s parliament. The major water pressures in the Tagus basin are linked to the agriculture, due to both the irrigation system in the basin (2000 Hm3/year) and the water transfer to the Segura basin (500 Hm3/year). Second to agriculture is the industrial sector (1400 Hm3/year), including refrigeration of nuclear plants. Urban consumption is third (1000 Hm3/year), but it shows a steady increase over time. Among stakeholder groups, only the farming organizations perceive a scarcity of water, especially during dry years. They consider that there is a sector unbalance favoring the urban and industrial users. In general, farmers considered that the regulation capacity should be increased to allow further expansion of the irrigated lands. An urban model based on a high consumption of water has led to problems of water supply in the Madrid region. The increasing urbanization provokes conflicts for water distribution (i.e., irrigation vs. urban consumption). The water transfer Tagus-Segura represents a complex policy of water distribution that gene- STRIVER TECHNICAL BRIEF / ISSUE NO. 11 3

4 rates many political conflicts between different regions in Spain. During the meetings with stakeholders, it was mentioned repeatedly as the major problem for the Basin. In the A.G.U.A Program water for SE Spain is supplied entirely by desalinization plants, thus allowing cancelling the water transfer. Issue 3. Water prizing The pricing of water is very low in Spain, specially for farmers and households. There are historical reasons for this, since having an unlimited access to water has been considered a basic right and a symbol of progress. In the case of irrigation water, there is a political price in order to reduce the production costs. It is often said that irrigated agriculture is subsidized in Spain by means of keeping the prize of water way below its real market prize. One of the aims of the A.G.U.A Program is to fix water pricing according to the real costs (acquisition and treatment) and to the economic benefits generated by its use. It is expected that this measure will promote investments in water saving technologies. In the present moment, urban supply infrastructure and irrigation infrastructure are not wellconserved and there are important water leaks. Water prizing is considered a major issue by farmers. There is fear that increasing the water costs to meet the market prize will be very negative for the agricultural sector, and there is a clear opposition to it. Issue 4. Water quality and pollution A major goal of the Basin Plan is to ensure water quality for each use (especially in the case of drinking water) and for the environment. The Tagus Basin Administration Office has different systems to control water quality, such as the SAICA (Automatic System of Water Quality Information) system. There is also an inventory of authorized effluent discharge points. The Chapter V- Water Quality and effluent discharge management of the Hydrological Plan of the Tagus Basin defines the standards for rivers and for lakes and reservoirs. However, even the members of the Tagus Basin Authority recognized during the meetings that there are still many problems threatening water quality in the basin. All stakeholder groups mentioned that the water quality is low in the middle and lower parts of the basin, and pointed to deficient water treatment in small towns as a major cause. There is also illegal waste water dumping from the industry, illegal gravel extractions and effluents from intensive farms. According to the CHT, mentioned that there is not enough control on water quality due to not enough funds and resources for monitoring and control. Issue 5. Environmental impact and ecological flows One goal of the Basin Plan is to protect the water resources altogether with the environment and other natural resources. However, there is the perception that the minimum ecological flow is not respected in many cases, and that there is a lack of a well established methodology for determining the ecological flow. This last remark was also made by the members of the CHT. A reason given for not reaching the ecological discharge was due to the Tagus-Segura water transfer and to the water supply for Madrid. There have been problems with the introduction of foreign invasive species. The current Basin Plan does not include information on vulnerable flora, fauna or ecosystems, nor about geology, soils or landscape values. There are other initiatives for protecting the basin environment, such as the A.G.U.A Program, the National Strategy for River Restoration, the National Plan of Water quality , the Action Plan for 0 Sewage, the Plan of Priority Actions for hydrological and forestry restoration and the Nature 2000 network. STRIVER TECHNICAL BRIEF / ISSUE NO. 11 4

5 Issue 6. Institutional aspects (administration) The Tagus Hydrographic Confederation (CHT) is the main institution responsible for water resources management in the Tagus basin. It was created in 1953, and its attributions were further consolidated by the Water Law of Its attributions are very broad, and comprise all the aspects of IWRM. Besides, there are other administrative offices which share some of the attributions of the CHT, such as the Isabel II Canal Office, the regional governments of the Madrid Region, Castilla La-Mancha and Extremadura, and even the local (municipal) administrations. Although there are numerous policies and regulations on water management, one of the main problems is that the specific responsibility of the different administrations is not well defined. There is also a lack of coordination. During the stakeholder meetings, it was repeatedly mentioned that there is a lack of coordination between areas, institutions and policies, and that water resources management is not considered as a global problem. Issue 7. Law enforcement In general, all the stakeholders shared the common opinion that there is not enough enforcement of the water and environmental laws. Members of the CHT pointed out that there is not enough funding to effectively monitor and control the huge area of the Tagus Basin. Issue 8. The EU Water Frame Directive The Water Framework Directive principles and regulations should be totally accomplished by Within this new context, the Spanish Government launched the A.G.U.A. (Actions for the Management and Use of Water) Program, based on the economic, social and natural value of water. At the same time, a new Hydrological Plan for the Tagus Basin is being elaborated, considering the principles of the Water Framework Directive and ensuring an active participation of all the concerned parts. However, members of the Administration mentioned difficulties for meeting all the objectives of the Directive in time. Among the stakeholder groups, the farmer collectives were the only ones to express their concern about the implementation of the Directive. They believed that the agricultural sector is threatened by its principles, and had the impression that there is a lack of information on the implementation of the Directive. Issue 9. IWRM, information and public participation In general, the stakeholders expressed their impression that the principles of IWRM are not met in the basin. This is probably a consequence of the fact that water resources management has been considered during decades mostly a technical issue, thus controlled by engineers. The basic principles of IWRM (e.g. Dublin, GWP) where not included in the 1999 Basin Plan, although they will be included in the new plan which is under development. Although an effort has been made to make all hydrological data public on the web, it is still difficult to get information beyond the technical data, so the decision-making process is not transparent. Some users mentioned that requests for information are often ignored by the Administration. Public participation is very low under the current Basin Plan. Public participation was not considered an important issue even for some people from the Administration, who expressed their doubts about the success of public participation in IWRM due to sectoral and territorial conflicts. This idea was shared by some of the non-technical stakeholders. However, it must be noted that public participation has already started, led by the elaboration of the new Basin Plan. Actually, more than 1000 invitations have been sent to different actors, and some meetings with stakeholders STRIVER TECHNICAL BRIEF / ISSUE NO. 11 5

6 have already been held. These included water managers, social network, private companies/industry, end users and Institutions. There is up-to-date information about the development of the new Basin Plan in the web ( publica3.htm) and by brochures, and there are information offices in Madrid and several other cites in the Basin. All participants in the meetings are informed by SMS of any new developments of the Plan. Issue 10. Capacity building The current Basin Plan does not have any specific plans for capacity building. However, during the meetings it was evident that there is a need for improving education and capacity building. Most end users, including members from the Administration, still perceived water as a right, and not as limited resource. The leading ideas of IWRM are not at all widespread among the users and even among the managers. Some groups of stakeholders, such as the farmer organizations, expressed no special interest in the concepts of IWRM. STRIVER TECHNICAL BRIEF / ISSUE NO. 11 6

7 Fact box 2 Projected trends in water availability in the Tagus basin The water availability in the Tagus basin is highly determined by climate variability. The figure shows the evolution of a multi-scalar drought index (Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index) calculated from precipitation and temperature data and considering three different time scales in the headwaters of the Tagus basin, which has a crucial importance in Spain since here is the point of origin of the water transfer to the Júcar and Segura basins. The Figure also shows the anomalies (z-values) of river inflows to the Entrepeñas and Buendía reservoir system, the reservoir storages and the releases to the Tagus river after the water transfer. Figure shows the close relationship between the variability of the climatic drought index and the evolution of the water resources in the region. River discharges respond to high-frequency droughts but reservoir storages respond to the long-term patterns of climate variability. The response of the releases to the climate variability is lower, mainly since the beginning of the 1980 decade, as a consequence of the increase in the transferred water. Since 1980 the drought periods have increased in frequency and severity, explaining most of the trends in the water resources. 3 2 z-values months SPEI Inflows z-values months SPEI Reservoir storages z-values months SPEI Releases Given the high relationship between climate variability and water resources in the Tagus basin, there is high uncertainty about the future availability of water resources in the future given the prediction of the Climate Change Models. Despite moderate variations among climate models, all projections point to a consistent decrease in precipitation and a marked increase of temperature in the basin. Such changes may lead to decline the water resource available in the basin up to 17% by 2060 compared to current conditions (Ayala-Carcedo, 2003*). *Ayala-Carcedo, F.J.(2003). Impactos del Cambio Climático sobre los recursos hídricos en España y viabilidad física y ecológica del Plan Hidrológico Nacional En Arrojo y Del Moral eds. La Directiva Marco del Agua: Realidades y Futuros. Fundación Nueva Cultura del Agua, Zaragoza, STRIVER TECHNICAL BRIEF / ISSUE NO. 11 7

8 Fact box 3 The Tajo-Segura water transfer The water transfer Tagus-Segura, started in 1978, supplies water to the irrigated areas in southeast Spain. The original plans estimated a volume of water transfer of about 1100 hm 3 per year, but in practice only seldom the volume exceeded 500 hm 3 per year. The Figure shows the spatial location of the Water transfer system, from the reservoirs of Entrepañas and Buendía in the headwaters of the Tagus basin to the Mediterranean basins of the Júcar and the Segura. The source of the water transfer is Bolarque reservoir, from where the water is pumped to La Bujeda reservoir, which is used as an upper reservoir (7 million cubic metres) of the Altomira power station. The channel flows into the Alarcón reservoir, in the Júcar basin, in the vicinity of which, and by means of an inflow-outflow system, the other stretch of channel runs into the Talave reservoir, now in the Segura River Basin. The transportation of the resources to the basin occurs physically by means of a canal with a capacity of 33 m³/s, which theoretically would be enough to transfer the above-mentioned 1,000 million cubic metres per year in a continuous flow. Inside the basin, the infrastructures permit the distribution of these transferred resources to their different areas of use. The evolution of the transferred flows between 1978 and 2003 is also shown. There were high increases of the water transfers from 1995 until now Water transfer (Hm3) X Data The volume of water transfer must be approved year by year (and even month by month or season by season during dry years) by the Spanish Government, according to the volume of water stored in the Entrepeñas and Buendía reservoirs. Nevertheless, the water transfer from the Tagus river has encountered strong opposition from the regional government and farmers of Castilla-La Mancha, since they maintain that during the dry years there was no water surplus in the Tagus upper basin. The recent drought caused minimum reservoir storages in the Entrepeñas and Buendía system and controversial political decisions to approve the transfer under this extreme condition. Several citizen demonstrations in both Tagus and Segura basins, in favour and against the water transfer, respectively were recorded that year. STRIVER TECHNICAL BRIEF / ISSUE NO. 11 8

9 Fact box 4 The Tagus Wordle The Tagus Wordle art has been constructed from the transcription of the interviews held with different focus groups in the Basin. A computer program selected the key words based on their prominence, and placed them randomly. The font size is proportional to the number of occurrences of the word, so the resulting word cloud can be seen as a conceptual map of the meetings. STRIVER TECHNICAL BRIEF / ISSUE NO. 11 9

10 The STRIVER Policy and Technical Brief series translate the results from the project into practical and useful information for policy makers and water managers. The Briefs are also available online: About STRIVER STRIVER- Strategy and methodology for improved IWRM - An integrated interdisciplinary assessment in four twinning river basins is a three year EC funded project under the 6th framework programme (FP6) coordinated jointly by Bioforsk and NIVA. The point of departure for STRIVER is the lack of clear methodologies and problems in operationalisation of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) as pointed out by both the scientific and management communities.13 partners from 9 countries participate as contractual partners in addition to an external advisory board. Title of project: Strategy and methodology for improved IWRM - An integrated interdisciplinary assessment in four twinning river basins (STRIVER) Instrument: SUSTDEV II.3.6: Twinning European/third countries river basins. Contract number: Start date of project: July 2006 Duration: 36 months Project funded by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme ( ) Disclaimer The information provided and the opinions given in this publication are not necessarily those of the authors or the EC. The authors and publisher assume no liability for any loss resulting from the use of this report. Editors: Per Stålnacke and Udaya Sekhar Nagothu (Bioforsk) Launch-date: 30 June, 2009 STRIVER TECHNICAL BRIEF / ISSUE NO