Spain: Climate change and AGUA programme

For Spanish agriculture, water and its good management are crucial. Indeed, even if the average pluviometry of the country is not negligible, precipitations are very badly distributed. This bad allocation of resources generates strong competitions, on all the levels: local (between the various users), regional (between autonomous Communities of the same catchment area), and national (on one side, the autonomous Communities which dispute in the State competences regarding water management and on the other side, the political parties which clash on the transfers between catchment areas “surplus” and “overdrawn” basins). Through the program AGUA, the current Spanish government promotes a water management based on the one hand, on water saving and the development of new resources (primarily by the desalination of sea water) and, on the other hand, on the internalisation of the external costs dependent for the use of water. Moreover, the Minister for agriculture announced the continuation of the actions for the irrigation within the framework of the PDR 2007-2013. On his side, the policy aiming to the application of the principle pollutant/payer, according to the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/CE), comes to reach a crucial stage with the presentation of the project of revision of the “Ley de Aguas” (literally, “law of water”). This preliminary draft envisages in particular the integration of the costs of generation and distribution at the price of water and appreciably increases the fines in case of water pollution. However, the debates are not closed since this project meets the opposition of the Federation of the irrigants, the FENACORE, which estimates between 25 and 30 million euros the overcost for Spanish agriculture.