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CLIMATE CRISIS

Catalonia to impose water restrictions to fight drought

Catalonia's regional government has put 515 municipalities with 6.6 million inhabitants on high alert for drought. Here's what residents should know about water restrictions.

Catalonia to impose water restrictions to fight drought
Drought declared in Catalonia. Photo: Josep LAGO / AFP

The lack of rain and high autumn temperatures have meant that several reservoirs in the northeastern region are currently only at 33 percent capacity, resulting in Catalonia facing drought.

The Ter-Llobregat system, the Darnius and the Baodella reservoirs are all affected by the low water levels.

Restrictions on water consumption will be applied across 515 municipalities affecting 6.6 million inhabitants, the councillor for Acció Climàtica (Climate Action), Teresa Jordà, announced on Monday November 21st.  

“Tomorrow (Tuesday, November 22nd) we will declare a drought alert in the Ter-Llobregat basin. There will be 26 counties in alert,” she said in an interview with Ràdio Catalunya.  

According to the Catalan Drought Plan, the Ter-Llobregat system goes into alert when the reservoirs fall below 210 cubic hectometres. This is already happening and this Tuesday, November 22nd the Interdepartmental Drought Commission will meet to declare a drought alert.

The restrictions will come into force when the resolution of the director of the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) is published in the Official Gazette of the Government of Catalunya (DOGC), which is thought to be scheduled for the end of the week.

READ ALSO – IN PICTURES: Drought in Spain intensifies as Roman fort uncovered

What will change?  

When the restrictions have been approved, water consumption will have to be reduced for agricultural, livestock, industrial and recreational uses. Specifically, agricultural consumption must be restricted by 25 percent; for livestock by 10 percent; for industrial uses by 5 percent; for recreational uses involving irrigation by 30 percent and for other recreational uses by 5 percent.

For now, there won’t be any restrictions on the domestic supply of drinking water, but there will be a few limitations on the general public. 

  • You will not be allowed to fill your swimming pool. 
  • There will be restrictions on how much you can use to water your garden.  
  • Those who have a garden are advised to water it every other day and only during the cooler hours to ensure the survival of trees and plants.  
  • You are also not allowed to fill ornamental fountains or clean the streets with water from the general supply.
  • A maximum of 250 litres of water per day per person is set (a five-minute shower uses on average 100 litres).  

Up until now, there were 301 municipalities with water restrictions. These included areas around Llobregat Mitjà, Anoia Gaià, Empordà, the Serralada Transversal, Banyoles, Prades Llaberia and the Fluvià de la Muga, which have all been suffering from drought in recent weeks. Now the Ter-Llobregat system and the Darnius and the Baodella reservoirs have been added.  

The Ter-Llobregat system supplies drinking water to more than 100 municipalities in the Alt Penedès, Anoia, Baix Llobregat, Barcelonès, Garraf, Maresme, La Selva, Vallès Oriental and Vallès Occidental regions, with a population of around five millions of inhabitants.

The Drought Plan has been in place for over a year, as the Ter-Llobregat system was in pre-alert phase since February 2021.  

In these last nine months, the Catalan Agency of Water (ACA) has implemented measures to slow down the decline of water in reservoirs.  

According to Climate Action, the production of desalination plants has been boosted, which have gone from 20 percent to 90 percent of their capacity and have contributed more than 54 cubic hectometres to the system.

This contribution has made it possible to mitigate the decline of water levels in the reservoirs and avoid greater restrictions than currently seen.  

“If today we are at 34 percent of reserves, without the desalination plants we would have stood at 27 percent,” sources from Climate Action have stressed.      

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FOOD AND DRINK

How hi-tech hops are keeping beer bitter in Spain as climate bites

Outside a warehouse in northwestern Spain, it's a freezing, foggy morning but inside it's balmy, the warmth and LED lights fooling 360 hop plants to flower as if it were late August.

How hi-tech hops are keeping beer bitter in Spain as climate bites

Mounted on a soaring grid system of cables and wire, these vigorous climbing plants are in full flower, covered in delicate papery-green hops which are prized for giving beer its unique aroma and crisp, refreshing bitterness.

Normally farmed outside, the hop plants are part of a unique indoor farming project by Spanish startup Ekonoke, which has developed an alternative way to cultivate this climate-vulnerable crop in order to protect the drinkability of beer.

Experts say rising temperatures and increased droughts have made Europe’s hop harvests increasingly unpredictable, lowering yields and reducing the quality of the alpha acids in its resins and oils that are so crucial to the taste and character of different beers.

“Climate change is affecting the field, and last year we were down 40 percent on hop production in Europe,” said Giacomo Guala, policy adviser on hops for Copa-Cogeca, which groups the European Union’s main farmers unions.

“You don’t get rain when you’re supposed to, or too much rain when you’re not supposed to, so that predictability is no longer there,” he told AFP.

Hi-tech hops

Brewers are already feeling that unpredictability.

Having a stable supply of hops was “crucial” as there was no alternative to give that bitterness, explained Jose Luis Olmedo, head of research and development at Cosecha de Galicia, the innovation arm of Spanish brewer Hijos de Rivera, which makes Estrella Galicia beer.

Reliant until now on field-grown hops, the Galicia-based brewer quickly saw the potential of the indoor hops grown by Ekonoke.

When the startup raised €4.2 million in investment rounds in 2022, it said “a significant” chunk of it came from the brewer.

An employee hand-picks indoor-grown hops during harvest at Ekonoke company’s facility. (Photo by Brais Lorenzo / AFP)

It also caught the attention of the world’s largest brewer AB InBev, joining its startup accelerator programme.

“What brewers are most interested in is the guaranteed supply of quantity and quality,” said Ekonoke chief executive Ines Sagrario at their 1,200-square-metre (13,000-square-foot) pilot farm in Chantada, where they harvested their first crop in mid-February.

They began trials at their Madrid lab in 2019, starting with four plants and scaling to 24, slashing the growing time and using “15 times less water” than outdoors, while aiming “to reach 20”.

“In this warehouse, we control all the environmental and nutrient parameters and the lighting factors, using LED lights to provide the plant what it needs when it needs it,” said Sagrario.

The lights replicate the different colours and intensity of sunlight at each stage of the growth cycle when they bathe the rapidly growing plants in an ambient purple glow.

Halving the growth cycle

The heady scent of hops permeates the air as a huge bine laden with hop cones is cut from its trellis, tumbling to the floor before being carried out to a red harvesting machine.

Grown without soil, the bines are fed by a closed system that allows constant reuse of the nutrient-infused water and doesn’t use pesticides, relying instead on tightly controlled access protocols.

“In the field, although the cycle is six months, they can only harvest once a year, because you need the correct growing conditions,” said agronomist and chief operations officer Ana Saez.

Ana Saez, 45, agronomist and chief operating officer, harvests indoor-grown hops at Ekonoke. (Photo by Brais Lorenzo / AFP)

“Here, as we can control and replicate ‘spring’, we’ve reduced the crop cycle to three months.”

Multiple trials had shown their hops contained “more alpha acids per kilogram” than those in the field, Saez said, pointing to the abundance of yellow powdery lupulin clinging to the cones.

By summer, three grow rooms will be operational with more than 1,000 plants maturing on a staggered basis.

“Once we finish learning everything we need to learn in this pilot, we will be building a full-scale industrial facility with 12,000 square metres of growing area,” said Sagrario, whose 12-strong team has so far managed to replicate five different hop cultivars.

For Hijos de Rivera, it’s a project of “strategic” importance, with the brewer planning to have the facility fully operational “by the end of 2025”, said Olmedo.

Mirek Trnka, a bioclimatologist from the Czech Academy of Sciences, said hydroponics was one solution, but scaling up to meet market demands would be tricky.

“Even though the hop is a minority crop, you’d have to upsize operations quite significantly to match the current production globally by hydroponic growth,” he told AFP.

At Ekonoke, they see their role as using science and technology to protect the hops’ biodiversity and eventually developing new hybrids “to give more quantity and quality using less resources”.

“People ask us if hop farmers outdoors feel threatened by us, but we’re not threatening them. Climate change is threatening them,” said Sagrario.

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