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CLIMATE CRISIS

Illegal water use dries out key Spanish lagoon

The largest permanent lagoon in drought-hit southern Spain's Doñana natural park, home of one of Europe's largest wetlands, has completely dried out for the second summer in a row.

Published: 12 August 2023 10:30 CEST
Illegal water use dries out key Spanish lagoon
The cracked dry bottom of the Lucio del Lobo pool, at the Donana National Park in Aznalcaraz, southern Spain. (Photo by CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP)

A huge patch of cracked white earth has replaced the waters of the Santa Olalla lagoon, which usually houses abundant aquatic life and huge colonies of migrating birds.

The lagoon, which once covered around 45 hectares (110 acres), has been shrinking in recent years but this is the first time that it has dried out for two consecutive years, according to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

Scientists blame the lagoon’s disappearance on a prolonged drought combined with the overexploitation of aquifers for farming and tourism.

“Recent years have been very dry, which is not rare for a Mediterranean climate,” Carmen Diaz Paniagua, a researcher at the Doñana Biological Station, told AFP.

Most lagoons in the reserve are temporary, filling with rainwater in winter and then drying out in the summer but a few contain water year-round, providing an important refuge for animal life.

“The real problem is the mismanagement of the aquifers. We don’t even know how much water is being extracted because there are many illegal wells,” she added.

READ ALSO: Where in Spain are there currently water restrictions?

The Doñana national park is surrounded by a sea of greenhouses and the Matalascanas resort town is located less than a kilometre from the northernmost lagoons of the reserve.

“This is not a natural thing happening only because of climate change. It can be reversed, if we can reduce the water extractions the lagoon could resist,” said Diaz Paniaga.

Water use restrictions are in place on other parts of Spain but that is not the case in towns near Doñana where beaches still operate showers, she added.

The Dona reserve boasts marshlands, scrub woodland and beaches and is home to deer, badgers and endangered species including the Spanish imperial eagle and the Iberian lynx.

But at the Santa Olalla lagoon where wild horses once drank water surrounded by storks and flamingos, they now graze alone on the few tufts of grass they find growing from the cracked earth.

READ ALSO: Spanish government approves €2 billion funding package to fight drought effects 

Despite warnings from UNESCO and the European Commission, the conservative regional government of Andalusia where Doñana is located is pushing to extend irrigation rights near the park.

A draft law currently making its way through the regional parliament would regularise hundreds of hectares of berry farmland currently irrigated by illegal wells.

Defenders of the proposal argue it will aid those who unfairly missed out during a previous regularisation of farms in the area put in place in 2014 under a Socialist government.

“The water management policy is really not conducive to the conservation of Doñana’s lagoons,” said Diaz Paniagua.

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ENVIRONMENT

Spain’s endangered Iberian lynx population doubles in three years

The number of endangered Iberian lynx in the wild in Spain and Portugal has nearly doubled since 2020 to surpass 2,000 last year, the Spanish government said Friday.

Published: 17 May 2024 13:01 CEST
Spain's endangered Iberian lynx population doubles in three years

A total of 722 lynx were born in 2023 bringing their total number in the two countries to 2,021, a record high since monitoring of the species began and up from 1,111 just three years earlier, Spain’s environment ministry said in a statement.

This rise “allows us to continue to be optimistic about the reduction of the risk of extinction of the Iberian lynx,” it added.

Known for its pointy ears, long legs and leopard-like spotted fur, the species was on the brink of extinction just two decades ago due to poaching, road accidents and encroachment on their habitat by urban development, as well as a dramatic decline due to disease in wild rabbits numbers, the lynx’s main prey.

When the first census of the spotted nocturnal cat was carried out in 2002, there were fewer than 100 specimens in the Iberian Peninsula.

The ministry party attributed the boom in lynx numbers to the success of a captive breeding and reintroduction programme launched in 2011. Since then, 372 lynx born in captivity have been released into the wild.

“The recovery of the Iberian lynx population in Spain and Portugal constitutes one of the best examples of conservation actions for endangered species in the world,” it said.

The ministry said the Iberian lynx population has continued to rise since 2015, when the International Union for Conservation of Nature downgraded the threat level to “endangered” from “critically endangered — its highest category before extinction in the wild.

Most Iberian lynx can be found in the Donana national park and Sierra Morena mountains in the southwestern region of Andalusia, but the conservation programme has reintroduced captive-bred animals to the Spanish regions of Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura and Murcia, as well as Portugal.

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