Access to Water in a Changing World: How to Protect the Environment and to Tackle Water Poverty – The Case of Iberia — Rui Manuel Vitor Cortes

The following article was published in the November 2025 issue of the International Review of Contemporary Law, the journal of the IADL, focusing on climate and social justice.

Access to Water in a Changing World: How to Protect the Environment and to Tackle Water Poverty – The Case of Iberia

Rui Manuel Vitor Cortes

Abstract

Focusing on the Iberian Peninsula, the article highlights the larger consequences for biodiversity and food security due to climate change and water poverty, while analysing the current (unsustainable) water governance in face of European directives and drought policies of EU member states. Following such analysis and delving on the tensions arrising from water consumption and disruption between Portugal and Spain, it concludes with a proposal: a set of principles and guidelines concerning the rights to water and sanitation.

1. Climate change in the Mediterranean Region and consequences for biodiversity and food security

Surface temperature in the Mediterranean region is now 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level, with a corresponding increase in high-temperature extreme events. Droughts have become more frequent and intense, especially in the north Mediterranean. The sea surface has warmed by 0.29°C–0.44°C per decade since the early 1980s, with stronger trends in the eastern basin (report CCP4, Ali et al, 2022). Manning et al. (2019) analyzed the co-occurrence of long-duration meteorological droughts with extremely high summertime temperatures in Europe during 1950–2013. These authors found that such compound events are becoming hotter, more likely and longer in Southeastern Europe. Similarly, Vicente-Serrano et al. (2012) have concluded that between 1961 and 2011, the frequency and severity of hydrological drought events in the Iberian Peninsula increased, due to temperature rise and consequent positive trends in atmospheric evaporative demand.

Following this increased drought severity, forest and vegetation systems, which depend heavily on soil water, displayed a decrease in productivity. The Mediterranean region is a hot-spot for biodiversity, but 15–23% of Natura 2000 sites are projected to change towards more arid ecosystem types (Barredo et al., 2016). Biodiversity and ecosystem services would be exposed to degradation, especially because wetland reduction, which could affect 19–32% of localities under a 1.5°C–2°C GWL (48–73% under higher warming), particularly in Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Algeria, according to Lefebvre et al. (2019). A matter of high concern is the substantial shrinking of freshwater ecosystem habitats (reaching the highest expression in the Mediterranean islands). Increased aridity impacts forest ecosystems (Ali et al., 2022), since Increasing heat waves, combined with drought and land use change, reduce fuel moisture, thereby increasing fire risk, extending the duration of fire seasons and increasing the likelihood of large, severe fires (Lozano, 2017).

Drought management and climate adaptation are increasingly linked. In spite that drought periods are a natural feature, having occurred historically across Europe, climate change is powering the increasing frequency and severity of droughts, especially in Europe. Several droughts, with significant economic impacts, have hit large parts of the EU in the past decades, e.g. in 1994-1996 in the Mediterranean, 2003 in Central Europe, 2010-2012 and most recently 2018-2020 in Western and Central Europe and in 2022 in Iberian Peninsula, where most of the losses affect agriculture, the energy sector and the public water supply. If climate change were to increase average global temperatures by 3°C, droughts would occur twice as often and the absolute annual drought losses in Europe would rise to EUR 40 billion/year, with the most severe impacts in the Mediterranean Region, according to the numbers provided by the CCP4 Report from Ari et al. (2022).

Desertification is extending in the Mediterranean basin, generally due to unsustainable land use (Peñuelas et al., 2017). Increasing drought is projected to exacerbate desertification in North Africa and, under high warming, also in southern Spain. In some areas, sclerophyllous vegetation could even replace deciduous forests (Guiot and Cramer, 2016).

River runoff and low flows are expected to decrease (possibly by 12-15% or more) in most locations in Iberia, due to reduced precipitation, whereas groundwater recharge is projected to decrease due to reduced inflow (Yeste et al. 2021), which coupled with new areas for agriculture in poor soils will drive to the mentioned effect of desertification. Nevertheless, climate change will reduce crop yields in many of these new areas, mainly due to higher temperatures affecting crop phenology and the shortening of crop growing season. In spite of the lack of water, additional irrigation will be needed for most crops, which may increase by 25% in the northern and twofold in the southeastern Mediterranean, with arid southern areas at risk of insufficient water resources by 2100 (Saadi et al., 2015; Fader et al., 2016). Another aspect that will increase water over-exploitation is the use of supplemental irrigation for winter, like in wheat areas, which could become more common in the northern Mediterranean.

Other problem is the seawater intrusion, causing additional risks in coastal aquifers, with severe impacts on agricultural productivity, also affecting human supply (this aspect is strongly observed in southern Portugal and Spain). Overall, reduced crop yields combined with other factors such as rapid population growth and urbanization, increasing competition for water and changing lifestyles, will likely impact food security, particularly in North Africa and the Middle East. Besides agriculture’s growing needs, tourism imposes, additionally, more water stress in Iberia. Claro et al. (2024), based on a large set of publications, concluded that future Mediterranean water reserves may not meet agricultural water demands, due to reduced reservoir inflows and higher irrigation demands under future climate change and socioeconomic scenarios.

The cultivation of olive trees and grapevines, two of the dominant crops in the Mediterranean basin, could even become unsustainable, with the suitable climate conditions for their cultivation shifting to northern regions, according to Santillán et al. (2020).

2. Do European Directives may change the unsustainable water governance?

The average WEI+ values (acronym for Water Exploitation Index plus, a metric used to assess water scarcity by measuring the ratio of water used to the available renewable freshwater resources, quantifying how much of the available water is being consumed), indicate that the countries with the largest values were, by this order, Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Italy, Malta, and Portugal (Ari et al., 2022). Several other European countries have local hotspots of increased WEI+ values. But in this paper our focus is on the Mediterranean countries.

Moreover, technological advances and the accessibility of pumping techniques have led to mass-scale exploitation of aquifers, particularly in arid and semi-arid countries. However, excessive and uncontrolled groundwater exploitation has often led to aquifers depletion and pollution, with significant social and environmental impacts that must be considered when assessing economic efficiency. Today, however, the impact of widespread contamination shows a dramatic increase, especially non-point pollution (nitrates and phosphates) transported to streams and aquifers from irrigated crops. Besides, water quantity, it’s necessary to consider water quality to achieve the goals of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). This Directive deepens the commitment to conservation beyond the polluter-pays principle. But this principle is insufficient. Developing new approaches to preventing pollution at source is essential: it is much cheaper to avoid pollution or contamination than to decontaminate.

As a consequence of the water deficit, the common governmental policy in all Mediterranean countries has been to protect the capitalist investments in agriculture and to promote the increase of river regulation, artificializing these ecosystems with huge ecological consequences.

Therefore, a relevant document on this topic, approved by the European Parliament in 2024 is the so-called European Biodiversity Strategy (EU Regulation 2024/1991 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 June 2024), which also gives a clear focus on restoration. The ambitious objective is to restore the natural course of European rivers by at least 25,000 km by 2030. Therefore, it seeks to reduce the fragmentation of watercourses, increasing longitudinal and lateral connectivity, not only to obtain Good Ecological Status but also to restore habitats and species. Thus, this strategy seeks to transform artificial watercourses into natural rivers, which means systems that support the connectivity of water, sediments, nutrients, materials and organisms within the river system and their interaction with the surrounding landscapes. Particularly important is Article 9 of that Regulation, which states that Member States must carry out a mapping of artificial barriers to surface water connectivity where the obsolete barriers should be removed, decreasing the fragmentation.

The implementation of this Strategy faces considerable obstacles. Some right-wing European governments didn’t approve this document, whereas other countries, like Portugal, in spite of subscribing the Strategy, contradictory state all the priority to increasing water storage (new dams, water transfer…) with the propose to intensify olive and almond crops in the driest regions.

3. Drought policies in EU Member States

Drought (risk) management plans in the EU are based on administrative governance tools for the implementation of a drought policy based on the risk reduction approach after indicators and thresholds establishing onset, ending, and severity levels of the exceptional circumstances (prolonged drought). These plans also include measures to be taken in each drought phase to prevent deterioration of water status and to mitigate negative drought effects.

In most of the systems, the primary priorities are assigned to critical infrastructures (like dykes, and hospitals), drinking water (which is sometimes aggregated as/to domestic or urban water uses – which might include smaller industries; as well as livestock holding) and in some Member States to the environment. Some States include other/complementary criteria for assigning water use priorities for specific activities. This is the case of agriculture, where a ranking is established for the type of crops. For example, in Portugal, irrigation agriculture of permanent crops such as olive or fruit trees appears much higher in the ranking than other annual crops. Regarding the priority ranking of the environment/ecosystems, namely the so-called ecological flows, to maintain aquatic life, the situation is very different across the EU, since most of the Mediterranean countries reduce ecological minimum flows during droughts, which may seriously impact biodiversity and water quality (Schmidt et al., 2023).

Mediterranean countries, like Spain, establish a preference for drought scenarios, which the following ranking defines by this order: 1. water supply for the population, including the necessary supply for industries with low water consumption located in population centers and connected to the municipal network; 2. irrigation and agricultural uses; 3. industrial uses to produce electricity; 4. other industrial uses not included in the previous sections; 5. aquaculture; 6. recreational uses; 7. navigation and aquatic transport; 8. other uses. The order of priorities that may be established specifically in the River Basin Management Plans, always respect the supremacy of urban water supply. Portugal adopts a similar ranking: 1. urban supply; 2. livestock and permanent crops; 3. ecological flows; 4. energy peak production; 5. industry; 6. other crops (temporary); 7. other uses. Preference is given to uses that “ensure an economically more sustainable, rational and balanced water use (Schmidt et al., 2023).

Like it was previously mentioned ecological flows are considered a previous restriction, but are scheduled below urban water supply and may be reduced during droughts, unless Natura 2000 or Ramsar sites are affected: During a prolonged drought they must ensure only a minimum of 25% of the maximum useful potential habitat, in comparison to the normal 50-80% habitat range. In spite that is considered a flow reduction in a drought situation, such flow is even strongly contested by the Spanish farmers, especially in the international rivers flowing to Portugal (see also chapter 5).

4. Public supply and the application of tariffs to moderate consumption

Water taxes exist theoretically to moderate consumption and to finance water resources management. The WFD advocates the recovery of the costs of water services, including environmental and resource costs, but there is a water paradox that shows the difficulty of complying with this principle: the price of water is rarely equal to its value and rarely covers its costs (Grafton et al., 2020). The Spanish case can be considered paradigmatic of this paradox since the economic regime of water management is insufficient to recover the cost of water services. As San Martin & Lrraz-Iriba (2022) demonstrate, there are countless water subsidies in Spain, however, none of them are adequately identified and justified as an exception to the cost recovery, under the WFD principles, which is mandatory. This is illustrated by the users of the water diversions in Spain (like the Tagus-Segura transfer), where the taxes are far from the costs of such infrastructures. Thus, in this country, the economic regime of water management is highly insufficient, generating very low-cost recovery levels. In addition, considering the Consumer Price Index (CPI), tax rates have fallen in real terms by 32%-33% in the last decade, having grown much less than the real CPI of water supply and purification services (San Martin Lrraz-Iriba (2022). These authors conclude that it could even be said that the users of the transferred waters are highly favored compared with Spanish taxpayers, since prices move very far away from cost recovery (through subsidies) transformed into an increase in income for the agribusiness at the expense of the common taxpayers.

Similarly, in Portugal, the taxes are extremely low for agriculture and a substantial part is not taxed. Since there is a widespread lack of measurement in this country, the average tax of water abstraction for agriculture was around 0.00035 €/m³ in 2021, a value that do not allow a proper conservation of water resources. Even if the WFD considers the application of appropriate tariffs to guarantee the recovery of costs, the fact the municipalities adopt a political price in urban water supply, where the regulatory entity has a limited competency (the municipalities directly manage the systems), consequently do not contribute to improving the efficiency. The same applies to the low tariff values in the agriculture sector, especially the fact that fees and tariffs are not according to the irrigated area. Therefore, the estimated consumption does not encourage the adoption of techniques that allow the more efficient use of water. Concluding, the taxpayers support the agribusiness and the profits of national and international corporations, which do not provide an adequate water management.

According to the World Water Forum (2012), water demand management measures should be cost effective and they should provide a better allocation of financial resources for very expensive (and environmentally disruptive) structures, like the construction of dams, water transfer, or desalination in regions that are facing water shortages. The economic assessment of ecosystem services provided by the aquatic ecosystems, namely ponds, streams, wetlands or lakes, can also be useful to ensure that achieving the water requirements of ecosystems is recognized as a priority. This underlines the importance of developing cost-benefit or cost-efficiency analyses that compare several water management options (supply-side measures and water demand management measures), by internalizing the cost of the social and environmental impacts of the different options. This could promote Nature Base Solutions and river restoration instead of a continuous artificialization of the ecosystems to ensure the profits of agri-business.

5. Drought raises tensions between bordering countries. The case of Spain and Portugal

The total area of the Peninsula is of 581.000 Km², 89.300 Km² of which corresponds to Portugal. Two-thirds of this area is included in the international river basins, about 64% of the total Portuguese continental territory. Portugal has approximately 40% of the total volume from the waters flowing from Spain, which means a significant dependence from this country. Nevertheless, we can say that each Portuguese has, on average, the double of the water than his Spanish neighbor. Thus, it is obvious that water scarcity is much higher in Spain (Sereno, 2021) and this fact shows that water represents an important political issue, which implicates constant negotiations between both countries.

In September 2022, during a long-lasting drought, Spain announced that, in these circumstances, it could not fully honor the Albufeira Convention (AC), a treaty on water transfers to neighboring Portugal (these transfers are not exactly ecological flows, but they represent just a political agreement to protect economic activities). Extreme drought left Spanish reservoirs at a third of their average capacity that year, a situation not seen since 1995. Portuguese farmers found the decision difficult to accept, while environmentalists say it creates a significant ecological risk. Facing this unprecedented drought, the Portuguese government recommended for 43 municipalities to temporarily increase water prices for their main consumers. The country’s average family consumes 10 m³ per month and the most vulnerable families were affected (Sereno, 2021). Protests against water restrictions were shared by the population in both countries.: at the same time, thousands of farmers protested in Madrid in 2022 over Spain’s plan to reduce the amount of water taken from the Tagus River to irrigate agricultural land in the country’s southeast. Anyway, such demonstrations, related to water distribution, are frequent in this country, especially when the water deficit rises.

But what is the importance of AC? It is necessary to go back to history: Spain as Portugal were dictatorships up to 1978 and 1974, respectively, thus the considerable isolation from the International Community, as well as reciprocally. Therefore, we could say that the two Iberian neighbors share a sort of “parallel history lived with backs turned to each other”. Like Sereno (2021) points out, despite the scarce bilateral cooperation, where the freshwater resources constituted an exception, since both are the most youth democracies of Western Europe and they entered together in the EU, this fact contributed to give a new impetus to bilateral relations. Such new relations led to the Albufeira Convention, which was signed by Portugal and Spain on the November, 30, 1998 and entered into force on the 2nd of February 2000. This Convention is based on the principles enclosed in International Law, especially the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes, but also the European Law, especially the Water Framework Directive (WFD). This agreement (AC) intends to create the basis of a cooperation to protect and to take advantage of water use in the shared basins. The AC establishes the regime of flows that Spain should release at the border at Portugal. The fixation of these flows was made, considering the specificity of each basin (since they differ hydrologically).

Nowadays, the problems related to the shortage of resources and cyclical droughts in the Iberian Peninsula put new constraints on the AC: on one side, the Portuguese farmers and the environment ONGs want higher flows, and fewer exceptions (foreseen in the Convention when the hydrological year is exceptionally dry), on the other side, Spanish farmers demand for higher water retention in their reservoirs and lower releases, as well as additional storage structures. Moreover, the over-exploitation of the aquifers and their contamination reflects also the intensification of agriculture and new tourism demands. In 2008 the regime of flow was altered to make it more demanding. This review was made because Portugal demanded that the flow quantifications were fixed quarterly instead of annually.

These dramatic drought events and inherent social and political conflicts, as well as the impoverishment of the ecosystems lead to the creation of New Water Culture Foundation (FNCA), in the Iberian Peninsula (linking water associations between Portugal and Spain). This organization looks thus for a proactive citizen participation and interdisciplinary approaches. The Foundation represents, not only the environmental ONGs, but also the citizens affected by large-scale hydraulic works, users and consumers’ organizations, unions, and neighborhood associations etc., and looks for a close cooperation in the shared catchments. Considering the mentioned protests, this organization also attempts to decrease the regional conflicts related to water distribution, at a regional and national level, particularly between the two Iberian countries, looking to integrate the studies, actions and policies towards a sustainable water use in both countries.

6. The disruption of water use: the interbasin water-transfer schemes in Iberia

Water transfer between “donor” and “recipient” basins or rivers, provide, theoretically, an engineering solution for reconciling the conflict between water demand and availability, especially to provide water for intensive agriculture. In the context of climate change, which brings great uncertainties to water resource distribution, interbasin water transfer intends to play an increasingly important role in the global water-food-energy nexus. However, the transfer of water resources changes, simultaneously, the hydrological regime and the characteristics of local water bodies, affecting biotic communities accordingly (Yan et al., 2023). Besides, it may create important regional social conflicts, which may even rise to the level of political clashes between neighboring countries. However, in spite of these problems, such transfers are more and more demanded by the agrarians in face of the expansion of irrigation and water scarcity in the Mediterranean catchment, increased by the succession of drought events.

The most important interbasin water-transfer scheme in Iberia is the Tagus-Segura Transfer, from the Iberian System in Central Spain to the Mediterranean Levante Zone, which has been operating since 1979, and has caused severe impacts in both river basins, including increasing water deficit in the donor basin (middle Tagus). This is because the water demand in the receiving basin has increased in 24 years a total of 500 million m³, due to the irrigation and tourism sectors. The identified impacts (WWF, 2003) are multiple: a) habitat destruction is the result of the increase of irrigated land and tourist activities, which have led to multiple environmental impacts that were summarize from Sereno (2021):

4. a) Destruction of thousands of hectares of protected natural areas; b) black water market and uncontrolled water use: more than 100 million m³ of transferred water simply “disappeared” to supply illegal tourist resorts and golf courses; c) chemical contamination and the deterioration of the river ecosystem: the Tagus R. dries all summer long in the middle section, since the legal minimum flow of 6m³/s is not respected; d) increased social imbalance as the benefits of the transfer are mainly directed towards big agri-business and multinational Real Estate Funds or venture capital companies, marginalizing traditional farmers; e) illegal immigration and exploitation of immigrants increase, especially in the recipient region (Múrcia), reaching here the highest level of immigration in Spain. In conclusion, this model of water transfer is completely unsustainable, like Pellicer-Martínez and Martínez-Paz (2018) showed. These authors mention that water resources in the Tagus Basin are forecasted to suffer a 40% decrease in the RCP4.5 scenario and a 47% decrease in the RCP8.5 scenario. Not only this affect the Tagus Basin’s natural regulation, but it also affects water resources in the neighboring Segura Basin, due to the limitation in water transfers from the Tagus. It is estimated that flows between the Tagus and the Segura could suffer a 70% to 79% reduction in both RCP scenarios when compared to a scenario without climate change.

Water governance in Portugal has also largely turned to the issues of drought and agriculture. It is planned to develop a plan for the efficient storage and distribution of water for agriculture (National Irrigation Plan), in conjunction with other planning and management instruments that are currently in force, such as the Strategic Plan for Water Supply and Wastewater and Rainwater Management (PENSAARP 2030), and the so-called Strategy Water that Unifies, presented by the actual government in March of 2025. The priority established in this Plan is devoted to the increase of the water storage capacity of the existing infrastructures but also it implies the construction of 15 big dams, the creation of new water sources, namely abstraction infrastructures and a desalination unit in the Algarve. Of course, water transferences between river basins are also projected, such as from Tagus R. to Alqueva reservoir (the largest artificial lake in Europe), and from here to the south (Sado and Mira basins and to the Algarve). After all, all the water policy is essentially directed towards the satisfaction of the important lobbies linked to agribusiness organizations and the international investment funds in this sector, even if water efficiency is also considered.

We may illustrate this situation, in parallel with the increase in financialization of the actual “modern” agriculture, based on irrigation, and the consequent social changes, with a case study: the mentioned Alqueva reservoir, that we may consider the largest artificial lake in Europe, created for irrigation in the South Portugal, which exhibits the highest water deficits. The previous Mediterranean landscape, with extensive rainfed agriculture and grassland with cork trees, changed quickly along the last 3 decades towards a monoculture landscape, with a dominance of olive and almond groves, driving into more homogeneous and less diverse habitat. It was the decisive role of foreign capital investment in the expansion of intensive and super-intensive olive groves (Rodrigo, 2023). This author reveals that, in order to allow the mobilization of financial resources, many of the current intensive and super intensive olive grove producers, located in Alqueva, have created partnerships with venture capital funds. Traditional farmers have thus been replaced by a labor force that tends to be poorly paid, precarious, seasonal and with access to (very) deficient living and working conditions, often illegal and hired by employment agencies located in Eastern Europe and Asian countries (especially Nepal and Thailand) (Silveira et al., 2018). This intensification of agriculture was done at the expense of the reduction in number of the small properties (Silveira et al., 2018), towards the progressive concentration in larger farms, followed always by the agricultural intensification model. The price/cost of irrigation water has been largely subsidized, which, it should be emphasized, corresponds to a public investment since it depends on the effort of taxpayers (this aspect was already previously mentioned in chapter 4). Besides, the olive groves of Alqueva still benefit from EU support Common Agricultural Policy. In this way, while resident small farmers are being pushed out, they have been replaced by a reduced number of owners which benefit from low-cost water. This situation has led to exponential land prices, according to the market rules, since the speculation on the valued of the infrastructure land has largely increased, moved according to the wishes of the international venture capital companies.

Obviously, the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems were strongly disrupted. Some authors, referring to the intensive and super-intensive olive groves located in the Alentejo, mention the high energy consumption, simultaneously with the high loads of fertilizers (NPK) and pesticides. Indeed, although most of the region’s intensive olive groves incorporate herbaceous vegetation cover, it is possible to find more and more plantations, largely intensive, where herbaceous vegetation is removed and chemical fertilizers are used indiscriminately, with environmental impacts on biodiversity and higher rates of long-term soil degradation (Sousa et al., 2022). These authors concluded the existence of rising levels of water eutrophication, caused by the increasing concentration of nitrates, phosphates and potassium in plots with high densities of olive trees, where important rates of soil erosion are also observed, reaching levels that can trigger non-point contamination of water resources due to surface and groundwater runoff.

Férnandez-Lobato et al. (2021) demonstrated that the carbon footprint and carbon balance are negative, particularly in traditional irrigated and intensive olive groves. Concerning soil conservation, Beaufoy (2001) identifies the “modern olive grove” as one of the main causes of soil loss and desertification. In Spain, it is estimated that, in the Andalusia region, the average annual loss of soil in olive groves is 62t/ha/year, with minimum values in the least affected areas about 36t/ha/year while, in the most critical plots, erosion may reach till 92t/ha/year (Neves, Pires and Roxo (2013).

7. Poorness and the importance of preserving water in a changing world

Despite the EU’s relatively favorable position in global terms, water poverty is still an issue in the EU, with millions of people lacking access to safe and affordable water and sanitation. Approximately 9.8 million EU citizens do not have safe drinking water, while 9.4 million can only access basic water services outside their premises. Moreover, around 450,000 people have no access to basic drinking water services, and 6.7 million lack proper sanitary facilities (European Economic and Social Committee, 2023).

Vulnerable groups, such as Roma, migrants, homeless people and those living in poverty, are particularly affected. In addition, water stress affects approximately 30% of the EU population, with southern Europe facing severe water stress issues. The affordability of water and sanitation services is also a growing concern, especially with the possible increase in energy prices and goods, a consequence of Trump’s policy.

In the Mediterranean, water resources are unevenly distributed over space and time. Water shortage and drought situations are frequent, and have a particular impact in Southern and Eastern countries. The number of people living in countries in a situation of water scarcity, with less than 1000 m³/capita/year of renewable water resources, could reach 250 million inhabitants in 2025, 80 million of whom would be facing extreme shortage conditions with less than 500 m³/capita/year. Water demand across all Mediterranean countries doubled in the second half of the 20th century to reach 280 km³/year in 2007. It may increase by more 20%, essentially in the Southern and Eastern countries, where agriculture accounts for nearly 65% of this total water demand. These are numbers provided by the World Wildlife Fund _WWF (2003) and the World Water Forum (2012), but later reports show even a higher scarcity in 2023 and 2024, the years with the highest temperatures observed in Europe.

In some countries (Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Malta, Syria and the Palestinian territories), water withdrawals approach or even exceed the limit threshold of renewable resources. Water demand is increasingly met by an unsustainable water production relying on fossil water withdrawals and over-exploitation of renewable water. The prevailing national strategies still focus on extending water supply and pursuing abstraction, using and constantly deteriorating natural resources, causing a serious threat in the long term, a scenario amplified by climate change.

Computation of water footprints provides a measurement of water use on a national scale, and serves as an indicator for the level of water consumption associated with human activity, an important tool to help water management policies. Such data should include the amount of green water (rainfall) and blue water (water in the biota), used in the production of agricultural products, and grey (polluted) water generated by agricultural, domestic and industrial uses. Calculating the water footprint could also be used to measure “virtual water” exports and imports between two countries as a function of trade volumes between them.

The constant growth of irrigation and intensive agriculture under the capitalist rules are in contradiction with climate scenarios, therefore, it is necessary to adopt a different attitude. Like Bindi et al, (2011) and Claro et al. (2024) point out, a multidisciplinary approach is required: Green infrastructures and efficiency measures should be applied to the agri-food production chain, such as the use of smart irrigation systems, preservation of coastal wetlands to act as natural barriers to flooding and erosion and to regulate water flow, construction of small land dams for capturing water runoff to create ponds, plantation of forests to protect the soil and improve groundwater recharge, and rainwater harvesting. With the same purpose, Rocha et al. (2020) stress that the farmers should also change the crop species for less demanding water plants, a better attention to sowing date, cultivar and fertilization, as well as they need to improve a better disease control and a higher efficiency of the irrigation networks, besides the use of satellite imagery and drones to monitor water stress and plants condition, not forgetting an improvement of land-use policies.

Further, a comprehensive adaptation to the amount of agricultural water available in the future also requires anticipating and considering the potential climate changes and weather conditions. This is essential not only to project the damages that extreme atmospheric events can cause to crops, but also to forecast the amount of water that will reach the soil through precipitation and then be absorbed by it and by the crops, since the main objective should be to improve the soil-water balance.

8. Rights to water and sanitation

As a corollary of the previous analysis, we present a set of basic principles (and advice) that should be adopted to preserve and improve access to water and sanitation to protect the most vulnerable populations:

• In the long term, the solution must be centered upon the root of the problem: recovering the Good Ecological Status of water ecosystems under the rules of WFD; this is also essential to decrease the water prices for vulnerable populations to avoid expensive chemical treatment.
• In the short and medium term, we must provide the necessary resources to guarantee access to drinking water for all: pressurized systems, chlorination, sanitation and safe sewage collection and disposal.
• Shared catchments by different nations should have common management to avoid political conflicts.
• It is necessary to develop a democratic governance of water that guarantees human rights and environmental sustainability, assuming transparency and participation of citizens.
• In cases of overexploitation, it is necessary to establish public control over these water bodies to ensure sustainability and the priority of drinking water supply.
• Considering the allocation of public water rights, it is necessary to establish that these rights will be exercised in proportion to the actual water availability, or to promote a process of review of concessionary rights, through a transparent process.
• To avoid the marginalization of vulnerable users It should be highly regulated the private appropriation of water (water commodification).
• It is not possible to guarantee access to water in any scenario of climate change with the continuous intensification of agriculture, because of its impacts on water quantity and quality, especially in the Mediterranean areas.

 

References

Ali, E., W. Cramer, J. Carnicer, E. Georgopoulou, N.J.M. Hilmi, G. Le Cozannet, and P. Lionello, 2022: Cross-Chapter Paper 4: Mediterranean Region. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner,D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, pp. 2233–2272, doi:10.1017/9781009325844.021.

Barredo, J.I., G. Caudullo and A. Dosio, 2016: Mediterranean Habitat Loss Under Future Climate Conditions: Assessing Impacts on The Natura 2000 Protected Area Network. Appl. Geogr., 75, 83–92, doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2016.08.003.

Beaufoy, Guy, 2001: EU Policies for olive Farming Unsustainable on all Counts, BirdLife International European Community, Brussels, Belgium, 20 pp.

Bindi, M.; Olesen, J.E; 2011: The Responses of Agriculture in Europe to Climate Change. Reg. Environ. Chang., 11, 151–158.

Claro, A.M.; Fonseca, A.; Fraga, H.; Santos, J.A. Future, 2024: Agricultural Water Availability in  Mediterranean Countries under  Climate Change: A Systematic  Review. Water 2024, 16, 2484. https://doi.org/10.3390/w16172484.

European Economic and Social Committee, 2023. On-line. Reference SOC/763-EESC-2023.

Fader, M., et al., 2016: Mediterranean Irrigation Under Climate Change: More Efficient Irrigation Needed to Compensate for Increases in Irrigation Water Requirements. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 20(2), 953–973, doi:10.5194/hess-20-953-2016.

Fernández-Lobato, L.; García-Ruiz, R.; Jurado, F., Vera, D.;2021): Life Cycle Assessment, C Footprint and Carbon Balance of Virgin Olive Oils Production From Traditional and Intensive Olive Groves in Southern Spain, Journal of Environmental Management, 293, 14 p.

Grafton, R. Q., Chu, L., and Wyrwoll, P.; 2020. The Paradox of Water Pricing: Dichotomies, Dilemmas, and Decisions. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 36(1), 86–107.https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grz030.

Guiot, J. and W. Cramer, 2016: Climate change: The 2015 Paris Agreement thresholds and Mediterranean basin ecosystems. Science, 354(6311), 465– 468, doi:10.1126/science.aah5015.

Hanlu Yan, Yuqing Lin, Qiuwen Chen, Jianyun Zhang, Shufeng He, Tao Feng, Zhiyuan Wang, Cheng Chen, Jue Din, 2023: A Review of the Eco-Environmental Impacts of the South-to-North Water Diversion: Implications for Interbasin Water Transfers, Engineering, 30, 161-169.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2023.05.012.

Lefebvre, G., et al., 2019: Predicting the vulnerability of seasonally-flooded wetlands to climate change across the Mediterranean Basin. Sci. Total Environ., 692, 546–555, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.263.

Lozano, O.M., et al., 2017: Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Wildfire Exposure in  Mediterranean Areas. Risk Anal., 37(10), 1898–1916, doi:10.1111/risa.12739.

Manning, C.; Widmann, M.; Bevacqua, E.; Van Loon, A.F.; Maraun, D.; Vrac, M. 2019: Increased Probability of Compound Long Duration Dry and Hot Events in Europe during Summer (1950–2013),. Environ. Res. Lett. 2019, 14, 094006.

Neves, Bruno; Pires, Iva Miranda e Roxo, Maria José; 2013: Culturas Intensivas e Superintensivas e a Suscetibilidade à Desertificação: O Caso Do Olival No Alentejo, em: IX Congresso da Geografia Portuguesa – Geografia: Espaço, Natureza, Sociedade e Ciência, Évora, Universidade de Évora e Associação Portuguesa de Geógrafos, 44-51.

Pellicer-Martínez, F.; Martínez-Paz, J.M. 2018: Climate Change Effects on the Hydrology of the Headwaters of the Tagus River: Implications for the Management of the Tagus–Segura Transfer. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. , 22, 6473–6491.

Peñuelas, J., et al., 2017: Impacts of global change on Mediterranean forests and their services. Forests, 8(12), 463, doi:10.3390/f8120463.

Rocha, J.; Carvalho-Santos, C.; Diogo, P.; Beça, P.; Keizer, J.J.; Nunes, 2020. J.P: Impacts of Climate Change on Reservoir Water  Availability, Quality and Irrigation Needs in a Water Scarce Mediterranean Region (Southern Portugal). Sci. Total Environ., 736, 139477.

Rodrigo, I, 2023: O Alentejo de Alqueva: Quem Paga e Quem Beneficia. Vida Rural.

Saadi, S., et al., 2015: Climate Change and Mediterranean Agriculture: Impacts on Winter Wheat and Tomato Crop Evapotranspiration, Irrigation Requirements and Yield. Agric. Water Manag., 147, 103–115, doi:10.1016/j. agwat.2014.05.008.

San-Martín, E & Larraz-Iribas, B., 2022: Es Cara el Agua del Trasvase Tajo-Segura? Recuperación de Costes, Subvenciones y Tarifas. Technical Report. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.18052.30089/2.

Santillán, D.; Garrote, L.; Iglesias, A.; Sotes, V., 2020: Climate Change Risks and Adaptation: New Indicators for Mediterranean  Viticulture. Mitig. Adapt. Strateg. Glob. Chang. 2020.

Sereno, A., 2021: Climate Change in Albufeira Convention. UNECE Group in Charge of the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes

Schmidt, G. et al., 2023: Stock-Taking Analysis and Outlook Of Drought Policies, Planning and Management in EU Member States. Final report under contract “Technical and scientific support to the European Drought Observatory (EDO) for Resilience and Adaptation – Lot 2: In-depth assessment of drought management plans and a report on climate adaptation actions against drought in different sectors” (ENV/2021/OP/0009) for the European Commission, Directorate-General for Environment.

Silveira, A.; Ferrão, J.; Muñoz-Rojas, J.; Pinto-Correia, T.; Guimarães, M.; Schmidt, L., 2018: The Sustainability of Agricultural Intensification in the Early 21st Century: Insights from the Olive Oil Production in Alentejo (Southern Portugal)”, em: Changing Societies: Legacies and Challenges, Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, Lisbon, Portugal, 247-275, ISBN 978-972-671-505-4.

Vicente-Serrano, S.M.; Zouber, A.; Lasanta, T.; Pueyo, Y. Dryness, 2012: Is Accelerating Degradation of Vulnerable Shrublands in  Semiarid Mediterranean Environments. Ecol. Monogr., 82, 407–428.

Vicente-Serrano, S.M.; Lopez-Moreno, J.-I.; Beguería, S.; Lorenzo-Lacruz, J.; Sanchez-Lorenzo, A.; García-Ruiz, J.M.; Azorin Molina, C.; Morán-Tejeda, E.; Revuelto, J.; Trigo, R.; et al. 2014: Evidence of Increasing Drought Severity Caused by Temperature Rise in Southern Europe. Environ. Res. Lett., 9, 044001.

WWF, 2003. https://www.wwf.eu/?7035/Water-transfers-are-increasing-the-water-crisis

World Water Forum (WW) Priority WDM. Report relating to target n°1

Yeste, P., et al., 2021: Projected Hydrologic Changes Over the North of the Iberian Peninsula Using a Euro-CORDEX Multi-Model Ensemble. Sci. Total Environ., 777, 146126, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146126.

Rui Manuel Vitor Cortes

Full Professor at UTAD (University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal), Department of Forestry and Landscape Architecture. Rui Cortes is specialized in Water Resources and Aquatic Ecology, he has published about river ecology, river restoration and biological assessment, among other topics. He is an integrated member of CITAB (Centre for the Research and Technology of Agro-Environmental and Biological Sciences) and Director of the  magazine Ecossocialismo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All articles published in the International Review of Contemporary Law reflect only the position of their author and not the position of the journal, nor of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.