La BBC informa sobre la sequía en Murcia

No Rain in Spain

Spain is in the grip of its worst drought in 40 years. Barcelona is now importing drinking water, and thousands of farmers have abandoned their parched land. Sue Lloyd Roberts reports for Our World on the drought in the Iberian Peninsula.
Sue Lloyd Roberts reports

The Spanish newspapers have described it as "Water Wars" - the rows over water which have broken out in Spain this year, a year which has seen the worst drought in forty years

Arguments over Spain's dwindling supplies of water have pitted region against region and raised tension between political parties.

The crisis began back in April when Barcelona ran out of water and had to import tankers of drinking water from France.

With Spain suffering badly from the impact of climate change, the main political parties are divided as to how to cope with the problem in the longterm.

The left wing government, the PSOE, believe the answer is to build more desalination plants. Spain already has more than 900, the biggest number outside the Middle East.

The main opposition party, the Partido Popular, believes that the answer is to transfer water from provinces, like Aragon, where the River Ebro regularly floods its banks, to the parched areas which border the Mediterranean.

We travelled to the desert area of Murcia to ask how Spain can carry on developing tourist complexes and endless golf courses against a background of acute water shortages.

Environmentalists argue that Spain must decide on a more realisitic development strategy. There simply is not enough water to cope with the needs of agriculture and the expanding tourist industry.

But one good thing has come out of this, the year of drought. Spanish children are getting lessons in school on how to conserve water.

When we talked to some in the Barcelona area, we found that they are without doubt the most environmentally aware children in Europe!