East of Malaga area recognised as 'example of success' in reuse of water for irrigation

The abundant rainfall in autumn last year and so far this year in southern Spain has put an end to almost five years of extreme drought in Malaga province, which has had a particular impact on the Axarquía area to the east. Hundreds of hectares of subtropical crops, especially avocados and, to a lesser extent, mangoes, have been badly affected. Many farmers have decided to start again with their plantations now that the rains have returned and the outlook is once again promising for the sector.

The use of reclaimed water has made it possible to compensate for the drastic reduction in water resources available to farmers from La Viñuela reservoir, which was interrupted from 1 October 2022 until last summer, when they were granted a limited amount for emergency irrigation. For this year the situation is completely different and 12.8 million cubic metres have been allocated.

In this context, the regional spokesperson for agriculture, fisheries, water and rural development, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, highlighted "the unequivocal commitment" of the Andalusian regional government to non-conventional resources and highlighted the value of the water regeneration model in the Axarquía "as an example of success in water reuse".

He explained this during his speech on Monday 2 June at the conference on water management organised by the international desalination and reuse association (IDRA), entitled 'Andalucía moves towards water sustainability'. He highlighted the project to connect the Peñón del Cuervo waste water treatment plant with the one in Rincón de la Victoria, which he said has "reduced the water stress suffered by irrigation in the Axarquía area".

"On the one hand, we have guaranteed more water for crops with the increase in the economy and production that this entails and, on the other hand, we have reduced the pressure on surface and groundwater," said the spokesperson in a statement, in which he sees the Malaga model as "an example to be followed in other areas of Andalucía".

With an investment of almost 27 million euros, "one of the largest made in the Axarquía in recent years", the work on the Peñón del Cuervo treatment plant complements others such as projects in Vélez-Málaga, Rincón de la Victoria, Torrox and Algarrobo, which together produce more than 19 million cubic metres of regenerated water per year.

Fernández-Pacheco said that Andalucía will have a strategy for non-conventional water resources, "an ambitious and realistic roadmap that is expected to be approved in autumn and which forms part of a broader action plan that, in addition to guaranteeing water security, will enable environmental objectives to be met and ensure existing and future demand".

He explained that Andalucía has already multiplied the volume of reclaimed water by almost four times since 2019 and that the objective of this strategy is for this volume to be multiplied tenfold by 2027, that is, for the region to be able to reclaim up to 180 million cubic metres and become the region with the highest volume of reclaimed water.

He also referred to desalination, another of the key axes of this Andalusian strategy, which aims to reach 160 million cubic metres of desalinated water by 2027, although he pointed out that for this to happen "public-private collaboration is essential and that all the actors are rowing in the same direction".

In this respect, Fernández-Pacheco said that "water should not be a limit to sustainable development, but it is true that, in Andalucía, it conditions our way of living, producing and even investing. For this reason, the Andalusian regional government is taking advantage of all the strengths of its natural, cultural, economic and human heritage to prepare Andalucía in the event of future droughts and floods".

As he emphasised during his speech, "Andalucía is moving towards water sustainability thanks to the management policy deployed by the Andalusian government based on anticipation, dialogue and planning, which has already provided more resources to sectors as important at the socio-economic level as agribusiness and tourism."

The Plataforma en Defensa de la Agricultura de la Axarquía (platform in defence of agriculture in the Axarquía) have expressed their "total disagreement" with the statements made by the regional government. "It is not true that the water stress that the irrigation of the Axarquía has suffered and suffers at present with the use of reclaimed water from all the water treatment plants that supply water to the area has been reduced, but in many cases it has increased, as evidenced by the very high number of losses of trees, especially avocados, which have dried up and been uprooted, cut down or are extremely damaged by the use of these reclaimed waters," said the spokesman for the group, Alfredo Moreno.

They argue that "water that has been supplied and consumed by farmers in desperation at not having the water they have traditionally had from the reservoir of La Viñuela, due to the very poor water management of the two competent administrations".

Moreno also considered that these are reclaimed waters "with a high concentration of salt and other heavy metals that have and are contributing to a high deterioration of the irrigated lands of this area". "These reclaimed waters are designed to be mixed with good water at 20 and 80 percent, respectively, and have never been used since their distribution in the Axarquía," said the spokesperson for the group.

The platform's management has understood that "it is not true that the use of reclaimed water in the area has served to meet environmental objectives" and that "the economy and production in the area has been badly damaged and future demands can only be guaranteed with short and medium-term hydraulic infrastructures, both in the Axarquía and in the rest of Malaga province, which guarantee the survival of the primary sector".