The Spanish National Irrigation Plan - Water and Agriculture: Sustainability, Markets and Policies - page 349

Chapter 23.
The Spanish National Irrigation Plan

Ángel Barbero 1

The climatic conditions in the major part of the Spanish territory belong to the
Mediterranean type. That means medium to high temperatures with warm and extended
summer seasons in the eastern and southern regions, while in the inland, for instance in
the Central “Meseta”, differences between winter and summer temperatures are wider
than in coastal regions. For that reason, it can be found a wide range of types of
irrigation systems, conditioned by factors like their geographical situation in the national
territory: not only different crops, yields and watering methods but diverse structural,
economic and social aspects. Nevertheless, the common characteristic of these regions is
an uncertain and low rainfall regime added to frequent and long periods of drought.
Historically, in a great part of rural zones irrigation has played a critical role for rural
population to avoid poverty and sometimes starvation.
Today, there are still in Spain a great number of rural zones in which no other options for
development are significant except irrigation-based agriculture. The disappearance of
agriculture in these rural zones will imply depopulation and the abandonment of the land
with negative environmental impacts and a great imbalance in the population territorial
distribution. But in many cases, this type of agriculture has negative environmental
impacts too: very low efficiency of water use, due to old distribution networks and
flooding irrigation methods; over-exploited aquifers and diffuse pollution.
During the last decades, agriculture in many countries has to face challenges such as:
decreasing subsidies, compliance with an environmental legislation more and more
restrictive, severe restrictions to the use of water and, at the same time, the need for
farmers to produce competitive goods in a global market.
The implementation of the new water policy approaches and measures, e.g. water
pricing, must take into account all these circumstances and its consequences to the future
of the agriculture in many rural zones of Spain.
The Spanish National Irrigation Plan (PNR) aims to help the irrigation-based agriculture
to face all these challenges, developing five programmes and building a new financing
system tailored to the different irrigation systems and reinforcing the relationship
between administrations and stakeholders, mainly the irrigating farmers' communities.

1.

Deputy Director-General of Irrigation and Water Economy, D-G of Rural Development,
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Madrid, Spain.