Andalucia’s reservoirs low

SPEAKING on Thursday, April 6, Ramón Fernán ‐dez ‐ Pacheco, the minis ‐ter of Sustainability and spokesman for the An ‐dalucian government, said that the data on the levels of the reservoirs in Andalucia cannot be de‐scribed as “anything oth‐er than dramatic” as none of the basins cur ‐rently reaches 30 per cent of their capacity.

“Andalucia today has more than 500 cubic hectometres less than we had the same week last year,” the minister stressed during an insti‐tutional visit to the town hall of Gador in Almería.

He continued: “We have been experiencing a series of months in which it has hardly rained and this has had a series of consequences that we are all noticing. In the agricultural sector, it is more evident, but al‐so in the natural envi ‐ ronments themselves that are suffering from this drought, as well as for industry and tourism.”

Fernández ‐ Pacheco stressed that water is “fundamental” for An ‐dalucia. Given the state of the reservoirs, the re‐sponsible public admin‐istrations can only “in ‐vest, invest and invest in infrastructures that make us more resistant to this drought situa ‐tion,” he emphasised, as reported by a news source.

He also referred to cli‐mate change and its ef ‐fects, such as the lack of rain and the high tem ‐peratures that are being recorded in an “unusual way for the time of year.” All of this con ‐tributes to a greater risk of forest fires he pointed out.