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Hot and Dry not always what you want
It's another No Rain in Spain story - these headlines are going to stop being funny quite soon...
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Summer temperatures in Madrid could soar to 50 degrees Celsius by the end of this century if global warming continues at its current pace, according to a government report. Rainfall in southern Spain, large areas of which are already at risk of desertification, could fall by as much as 40 percent.
In the worst case, average temperatures in inland Spain will rise by 5-8 degrees by the end of this century. Madrid is usually in the 40s in July already. Even if industrial countries manage to slow down greenhouse gas emissions, the interior would be 3-6 degrees hotter on average.
Spain has a lot to do to meet its obligations under the the Kyoto agreement, but some of the most pressing reasons to try. Greenhouse gas emissions were 49 percent above 1990 levels in 2004, the highest of any Kyoto country, and it has to cut them to a 15 percent increase by 2008-12.
The country has already been hit by drought.
Two months of Atlantic storms in October and November have brought only partial relief and the two big reservoirs at the head of the Tagus river, essential to the water-supply for a great part of the Iberian peninsula, are only 12 percent full.
Most of Spain is naturally dry and suffers periodic cycles of drought, such as a five year one in the mid 1990s.
Climate Change may not, then, be the source of this drought, but it is bound to make for different weather patterms in the future, less rain falling in less time and more storms.
The year from October 2004 to September 2005 was the driest at least since records began in the 1940s. Rain in 2005/6 was 11 percent below average and 2006/7 is proving erratic.
The Tagus supplies 7 - 8 million people in Madrid and the surrounding area, provides irrigation for 300,000 hectares (750,000 acres) of maize and pasture, cools two nuclear power stations. Periodically they also have to send water to the dry southeastern regions of Alicante and Murcia, a further 2 million people, and the river also suplies areas of Portugal, safeguarded by treaty.
Madrid's household consumption is a relatively modest 130 litres a day per person but industrial and public usage is almost twice that amount again. Water authorities are insisting the 21 golf courses in the region, and its parks, use recycled water for their green spaces and they are closing some of the estimated 20,000 illegal wells tapping into the aquifer, which is the region's safety reserve.
Jose Maria Macias, president of the Tagus water basin, remains confident but committed - realistic.
"I hope we will be able to at least slow the rate of climate change, but in any case we have to reduce consumption. There are not going to be more water resources."
In the worst case, average temperatures in inland Spain will rise by 5-8 degrees by the end of this century. Madrid is usually in the 40s in July already. Even if industrial countries manage to slow down greenhouse gas emissions, the interior would be 3-6 degrees hotter on average.
Spain has a lot to do to meet its obligations under the the Kyoto agreement, but some of the most pressing reasons to try. Greenhouse gas emissions were 49 percent above 1990 levels in 2004, the highest of any Kyoto country, and it has to cut them to a 15 percent increase by 2008-12.
The country has already been hit by drought.
Two months of Atlantic storms in October and November have brought only partial relief and the two big reservoirs at the head of the Tagus river, essential to the water-supply for a great part of the Iberian peninsula, are only 12 percent full.
Most of Spain is naturally dry and suffers periodic cycles of drought, such as a five year one in the mid 1990s.
Climate Change may not, then, be the source of this drought, but it is bound to make for different weather patterms in the future, less rain falling in less time and more storms.
The year from October 2004 to September 2005 was the driest at least since records began in the 1940s. Rain in 2005/6 was 11 percent below average and 2006/7 is proving erratic.
The Tagus supplies 7 - 8 million people in Madrid and the surrounding area, provides irrigation for 300,000 hectares (750,000 acres) of maize and pasture, cools two nuclear power stations. Periodically they also have to send water to the dry southeastern regions of Alicante and Murcia, a further 2 million people, and the river also suplies areas of Portugal, safeguarded by treaty.
Madrid's household consumption is a relatively modest 130 litres a day per person but industrial and public usage is almost twice that amount again. Water authorities are insisting the 21 golf courses in the region, and its parks, use recycled water for their green spaces and they are closing some of the estimated 20,000 illegal wells tapping into the aquifer, which is the region's safety reserve.
Jose Maria Macias, president of the Tagus water basin, remains confident but committed - realistic.
"I hope we will be able to at least slow the rate of climate change, but in any case we have to reduce consumption. There are not going to be more water resources."
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