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Heavy rains top up Spanish reservoirs by largest amount in 10 months
October storms have alleviated the drought in Spain and the water level has risen for two consecutive weeks
It’s difficult to see a bright side after the devastation caused by the rapid onslaught of storms Babet, Aline and Bernard over the last couple of weeks, but the huge amount of rain generated by these weather fronts has taken some of the pressure off Spain’s reservoirs, which have been running dangerously low.
For the second consecutive week now, the storage units have been topped up, raising water levels by 2.33% in the last seven days alone. That’s an increase of 1,306 cubic hectometres, which brings the reserves out of the real danger zone and up to 37.92% of capacity. Still far from ideal, but a vast improvement on the summer months.
According to the Ministry for Ecological Transition, this is also the largest weekly increase in water levels seen in Spain in ten months.
Despite this positive change in trend, the situation remains quite worrying. We’re now in the 44th week of the year and in the last decade, the reservoirs have, on average, stood at 48.03% of capacity. A figure which is utterly unattainable for 2023 at this stage.
Still, the situation was even worse last year. In 2022, at this same time of year, the reserve stood at 32.19% of its capacity and had 18,038 cubic hectometres of stored water, which is 5.7% less than today.
And the recent rainfall hasn’t exactly been widespread either, meaning that the water levels in some of the reservoirs have actually depleted. Take the Segura basin in the south, for example: this week reserves fell 0.5% to a meagre 21.8% of capacity. The same is true of the Andalucian Mediterranean, which has dropped to just 21.9%, despite some truly torrential rainfall in the region.
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Image: Twitter/Carlos Castro
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