Procedures and Legal Instruments for Drought Declaration in the Segura River Basin (Spain)

Abstract

The phenomenon of drought and its socioeconomic and environmental consequences have been addressed in many studies, which show that anticipating its diagnosis and activating specific management measures are fundamental for providing an efficient response. In the Segura River Basin, located in south-east Spain, many episodes have occurred throughout history, with devastating effects on production and supply systems. However, they have enabled us to learn and evolve towards developing a resilient system to address these situations, through the application of external resources, transfers from other basins and non-conventional resources derived from the reuse of treated water and desalinated seawater. This evolution has been possible thanks to the advances made in hydrological planning and, specifically, the Special Drought Plans, through the development of indicator systems associated with scenarios which enable the automatic activation of specific actions to reduce the impacts. Climate change is already a reality and has led to an increase in the frequency and intensity of droughts, testing the capacity to respond based on the current policies. Therefore, the objective of this research is to analyse the last drought occurring in the Segura River Basin in the period 2015–2019 by comparing the status indicators developed for detecting drought in the SDP 2007 with its subsequent review carried out in the year 2018, in which these indicators were updated and expanded so as to cover both drought and scarcity. Subsequently, an in-depth analysis has been made of the approved legislation and the measures adopted which consisted in the mobilisation of more than 600 hm³ of extraordinary resources, which have been able to maintain the supply to the population and minimise the economic losses of the productive systems, particularly in irrigated agriculture.