water shortage

Do you have a query on how to get things done in Andalucia, where to find things, who to call? Find out by posting and hear about others experiences.
wollie
Resident
Posts: 1031
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2014 8:53 pm

water shortage

Postby wollie » Thu Jun 29, 2017 7:24 am

Just wonder how bad the water crisis is around Andalucia and in Spain in general.
I was traveling around Cadiz province last week and there are thousands of Hectacres
of sunflowers withering in the fields. It must be having a big effect of the
farming community, also how it is effecting life in general in Spain?
I tried to copy in a pic but i could not get it to work. "error"

User avatar
gerryh
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 8046
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 6:17 pm
Location: Cajiz, Malaga

Re: water shortage

Postby gerryh » Thu Jun 29, 2017 7:31 am

wollie wrote: I tried to copy in a pic but i could not get it to work. "error"
An easy way to add photos to a message is to use http://tinypic.com/
Cheers
Gerry
Gerry Harris

User avatar
costakid
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 5754
Joined: Sun Feb 13, 2005 11:55 am
Location: malaga este

Re: water shortage

Postby costakid » Thu Jun 29, 2017 8:32 am

I think we are ok on the coast. The water table is not as high as I expected though when we went up to Ardales .

User avatar
Wicksey
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 5879
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 1:21 pm
Location: Axarquia coast

Re: water shortage

Postby Wicksey » Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:29 am

The other week on the Spanish weather they said that the levels of the embalsas was about 56% but that was for the whole of Spain where the north gets an awful lot more rain than down here.

Just Googled and found theses figures below which are rather depressing for Lake Viñuela. It is only 35% full (64% full this time 10 years ago). When you think it's not quite July yet!


Agua embalsada (27-06-2017):58hm3 35.15 %
Variacion semana Anterior:-1hm3 -0.61 %
Capacidad: 165hm3
Misma Semana (2016):72hm3 43.64 %
Misma Semana (Media 10 Años):106hm3 64.42 %

Stevemul
Resident
Posts: 260
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 2:43 pm

Re: water shortage

Postby Stevemul » Thu Jun 29, 2017 10:06 am

Image

I thought that sunflowers were left to dry and wither before harvesting

El Cid
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 16058
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2004 10:42 pm
Location: La Herradura, Costa Tropical, Granada

Re: water shortage

Postby El Cid » Thu Jun 29, 2017 10:23 am

The whole of Spain has quite a lot less water than last year.

All the information is at http://www.embalses.net/

Sid

wollie
Resident
Posts: 1031
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2014 8:53 pm

Re: water shortage

Postby wollie » Thu Jun 29, 2017 10:37 am

Sid, thanks for link.
Steve how did you bring in pic? the field i seen was not quite that bad.

I was thinking more of the natural water used for farming irrigation etc as Spain produces quite a lot of the veg for the rest of Europe.
It be terrible for the farmers, it also likely have an effect on prices in the supermarkets. I know the harvest of olives last year was very
poor last year.

probe
Andalucia.com Amigo
Posts: 234
Joined: Fri Jul 30, 2010 4:41 pm
Location: Pizarra, Malaga

Re: water shortage

Postby probe » Thu Jun 29, 2017 12:01 pm

The reservoir at El Chorro is the lowest that I've seen for 15 years. It tends to be cyclical so hopefully more rain next year

Probe

User avatar
gerryh
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 8046
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 6:17 pm
Location: Cajiz, Malaga

Re: water shortage

Postby gerryh » Thu Jun 29, 2017 12:38 pm

wollie wrote: Steve how did you bring in pic?
See my earlier reply to your original post.
Cheers
Gerry
Gerry Harris

Stevemul
Resident
Posts: 260
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 2:43 pm

Re: water shortage

Postby Stevemul » Thu Jun 29, 2017 12:52 pm

Yes, that's how I did it! simples!

User avatar
Enrique
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 9488
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:47 am
Location: Mytchett/Alcala La Real

Re: water shortage

Postby Enrique » Thu Jun 29, 2017 2:09 pm

"I thought that sunflowers were left to dry and wither before harvesting"..........they are ready for harvest late summer up our way. Those look starved of water.
All my best learning experiences start with a problem I need to solve.

wollie
Resident
Posts: 1031
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2014 8:53 pm

Re: water shortage

Postby wollie » Thu Jun 29, 2017 2:22 pm

gerryh wrote:
wollie wrote: Steve how did you bring in pic?
See my earlier reply to your original post.
Cheers
Gerry
Thanks Gerry, btw the process you mentioned did not work for me but its really not important.

regards..

User avatar
gerryh
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 8046
Joined: Sat Jan 12, 2008 6:17 pm
Location: Cajiz, Malaga

Re: water shortage

Postby gerryh » Thu Jun 29, 2017 2:57 pm

In what way didn't it work?
Try https://postimage.io/ which is a similar photo posting method.
Cheers
Gerry
Gerry Harris

Gasman
Resident
Posts: 827
Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2009 10:53 am
Location: Huelva province

Re: water shortage

Postby Gasman » Thu Jun 29, 2017 6:39 pm

Over here in Huelva provincia, the sunflowers grow naturally, as in no irrigation or artificial watering. They have had a successful time this year as we had enough rains early on to get them going, and now they are starting to go-over. They just dry up in the sun after the petals wither and the heads bend over. There they stand til the harvester comes round and chops them off. Those in the picture do look a bit deprived as if they had a dry spring to set them off - then they dont grow quite so tall and the flower heads are smaller than usual. They are also set to seed at different periods during the spring, to hedge bets as to when and how long the rains will occur, so at present we have all the stages - gone-over but still a bit green in the leaves, full bloom and the size of soup-plates, just coming out, and still 4 ft high and the buds still green, and even some late-comers still growing up - all stages in different fields, and different aspects of land.

telboy
Resident
Posts: 845
Joined: Fri Dec 31, 2004 2:40 pm
Location: Fuentes de Cesna/Granada Province

Re: water shortage

Postby telboy » Sun Jul 16, 2017 12:47 pm

wollie wrote:Just wonder how bad the water crisis is around Andalucia and in Spain in general.
We are affected quite bad just now, our village bore hole is running very low, water is rationed and water pressure is reduced certain times of the day or even switched off, (switched off here since 7.30pm last night 1.30pm just now still no water). Campo Guest houses are suffering in having to cancel guests vacations especially those that have no water storage systems and no on-site caretaker/owners. Those properties of higher altitude aren't getting any water at all even when the water is stitched on. As you can imagine when water is on all those water storage deposits are filling up so properties at the end of the pipeline are getting zilch!! I did here from someone that in the Rio Gordo area there has been no water for 8 weeks in some villages.

There's a price to pay for campo living, OK you can live with no electricity for a few days but water is another issue, last year we had no water for 4 days because the main village pump broke down we had to wait for delivery of a replacement pump from Madrid.

terry

User avatar
Wicksey
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 5879
Joined: Mon Sep 20, 2004 1:21 pm
Location: Axarquia coast

Re: water shortage

Postby Wicksey » Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:18 am

telboy wrote:
There's a price to pay for campo living, OK you can live with no electricity for a few days but water is another issue, last year we had no water for 4 days because the main village pump broke down we had to wait for delivery of a replacement pump from Madrid.

terry
That's true tellboy but at least in the campo you do tend to have some sort of deposito as back-up, whereas in an apartment for example you've got nothing unless you buy bottled water. We have run out (or at least our neighbour who we buy our water off had not bothered to refill the tank :x ) and had been without for 10 days, and in August, and in the middle of refitting our kitchen :evil: . Luckily we have a small pool which we could bucket toilet flushing water from. That was part of the reason for having the pool as a deposito in emergencies. As mangoes continue to be planted around here, it is a worry if we do not have some wet winters in the coming years.

User avatar
Flexo
Resident
Posts: 442
Joined: Thu May 07, 2015 10:14 am
Location: Cordoba province

Re: water shortage

Postby Flexo » Mon Jul 17, 2017 2:59 pm

Note that there are cheap ways to harvest water from the atmosphere these days and there are new technologies that comes out at a regular basis. The most interesting gadget I saw was some sort of semi-organic metal composite that could extract a liter or something per day by solar power even when it is only 10% relative air humidity. There are also various machines that the military uses that can produce thousands of liters per day.

The new skyscrapers they plan to build that are taller than Burj Al-Khalifa will not even be installed on the water grid, cheaper to extract the water from the atmosphere than to buy water and pump it all the way up there.

olive
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 4501
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:13 pm
Location: Poniente, Granada

Re: water shortage

Postby olive » Mon Jul 17, 2017 7:08 pm

Not sure harvesting water from the air is that viable a solution.

Interesting article here about the farmers of Almeria and their water use and proliferation of plasticulture.
http://www.revolve-water.com/spain-water-prices/

Two things I got from that were
- The "solution" is for someone to pipe water in from areas of Spain that have water in abundance
- there doesn't seem to be a published price for actual cost of a cu m of water extracted by current desalination plants. presumably if published it would give ammo to those that cry unfair government support for farmers over the 65 cents they actually pay..

I read an interesting article on a new chemical process for desalination which might produce endless supplies of fresh water at the cost of the sea level. can't find a reference at moment.

Back in the moment. Yet anotrher olive farmer in our locality has installed this last week a solar panel and the biggest glassfibre storage tank I have ever seen. ( I encountered it arriving on a blind bend). I would bet good money it hasn't a licence. In a few days I will go and have a look to see if it has the visible, approved, locked meter as per Hydragrafia. Never a week goes by without a farmer here installing a well to irrigate olive trees.

El Cid
Andalucia Guru
Posts: 16058
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2004 10:42 pm
Location: La Herradura, Costa Tropical, Granada

Re: water shortage

Postby El Cid » Mon Jul 17, 2017 7:19 pm

What they need to do for the Costa Tropical is to actually connect some pipes to the new multibillion Euro Rules dam. Believe it or not, they made no provision for it to actually distribute the billions of gallons of water that is in it.

You really couldn't make it up! It's almost as bad as the UK building two aircraft carriers with no aircraft or crew.

Sid

User avatar
Flexo
Resident
Posts: 442
Joined: Thu May 07, 2015 10:14 am
Location: Cordoba province

Re: water shortage

Postby Flexo » Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:36 pm

olive wrote:Not sure harvesting water from the air is that viable a solution.
If you are thinking about viability then you can forget about reverse osmosis from seawater even if you live by the ocean as you would have to go through a wall of permits just to put the pipe into the water.

These probably use more energy than an RO unit but you would certainly pay up at least 3000-5000 EUR for an RO unit and then you would need a new 100 EUR filter every week:

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/atmospheric-water-generator
https://ecoloblue.com/en/6-atmospheric-water-generators


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 42 guests