Filling swimming pools and watering gardens banned in Malaga and on the Costa del Sol as new drought restrictions awaited

Restrictions on refilling swimming pools and watering gardens will be reinstated as reservoir levels in Malaga province dwindle below 100 cubic hectometres as the drought crisis continues to bite.

It comes as this Monday 30 September marks the end of the hydrological year, which has been worse than the previous one due to the continued lack of rainfall. This Monday also marks the ending of permissions to refill swimming pools and water gardens without limits.

These will be prohibited until the drought committees meet this week to assess the situation in all Andalusian basins. Regional sources say it is highly likely restrictions will have to be tightened.

Malaga's association of property administrators (CAF) sent a reminder out to its members to advise of the situation. The organisation was heavily involved as up until the start of last summer, workers from services such as maintenance, gardening were up in arms due to the uncertainty of the situation.

In the reminder, CAF said: “The use of water resources fit for human consumption is prohibited for the following uses: street washing, filling private swimming pools, watering gardens, public and private parks, golf courses, washing cars outside authorised establishments, fountains that do not have a closed water circuit, public fountains and pumps”.

The property administrators are waiting for new regional and municipal drought orders, the association also added.

The province-wide exemptions came into force on 1 June. They allowed the refilling of private swimming pools (both communal and private) and the watering of public and private green areas once a week.

Showers at the beach were also allowed to be put into service for those with reduced mobility to use, as well as those in swimming pools.

The Junta de Andalucía’s authorisation was conditional on the maximum provision of 200 litres per inhabitant per day for urban use. This provision will almost certainly be revised downwards this week, although differences between the Costa del Sol, Malaga and Axarquia cannot be ruled out due to their varying water situations.

The provision is measured from available water and population and is measured when the water enters each urban supply system, when it goes from high to low. It is not the daily consumption of a typical family, which is much lower, normally below 130 litres.

The province's reservoirs have once again reached a very worrying threshold, below 100 cubic hectometres in total. At the worst moment of the current drought they reached 97, however rainfall at Easter pumped them back up to 170. Currently, the province is holding 30 cubic hectometres less than this time last year and surface reserves are at 16%.

Malaga city and the Guadalhorce can hardly count on 10 months of water supply.

Agricultural irrigation is still limited to the bare minimum (nine cubic hectometres this summer), something that is also happening in the Axarquia, which has at least started to receive recycled water from the Peñón del Cuervo treatment plant in Malaga. But this water only reaches part of the right bank of the Guaro Plan, less than half of the farmers in the area. The region has enough water for urban supply for a year.

On the Costa del Sol, which will add 20 cubic hectometres per year following the update to the Marbella desalination plant, the margin is somewhat greater, but there is no room for confidence given the size of the La Concepción reservoir.

The Guadalhorce reservoir system offers a bleak example of the effects of a drought that has been haunting the province for the past six years. It is about to fall below 10 cubic hectometres in storage and is at barely 8% of its capacity.

This reservoir is, together with the Guadalteba and Conde (which emptied completely during the drought of 1995), the three main sources of supply to Malaga, with a total of barely 44 cubic hectometres

The backup reservoirs of El Limonero and Casasola could also supply some water, but they are reserves that are hardly used. El Limonero only has four cubic hectometres of water, while Casasola has five cubic hectometres.