Spain's Catalonia Suffering Worst Reported Drought in Decades
As wildfires rage across hundreds of acres in the Spanish region of Castellón, researchers are pointing to the country's prolonged drought as the cause. The drought has led to water restrictions for up to 6M people and prompted thousands of evacuations....
Facts
- As wildfires rage across hundreds of acres in the Spanish region of Castellón, researchers are pointing to the country's prolonged drought as the cause. The drought has led to water restrictions for up to 6M people and prompted thousands of evacuations.1
- Parts of Catalonia have not seen rainfall in 2.5 years. In March, the reservoir's water level had dropped to 8% of its capacity — a plummet from 55% a year earlier.2
- The Sau reservoir, 62 miles inland from Barcelona, has been supplying water to the city and other towns in the northeastern region of Catalonia for half a century. But in recent months, this reservoir has become a prominent symbol of severe drought.3
- The Catalan Water Agency began removing fish from the drained Sau reservoir in mid-March to protect the water quality.4
- A dry winter, with low rain and snowfall, has not replenished water supplies in many areas. The European Commission has also warned that Europe and Mediterranean regions could be in for another extreme summer in 2023.5
- According to Barcelona-based meteorologist Miguel Manzanares, countries such as France, Italy, Greece, and Balkan nations are at high-risk for climate hazards in the Mediterranean region.3
Sources: 1Itv news, 2The star, 3BBC News, 4CNN and 5Euronews.
Narratives
- Narrative A, as provided by Euro weekly news. Though wildfires are common in Spain during the summer months, their appearance during March is concerning experts who attribute it to climate change. Spain is one of the EU countries most at risk from the climate crisis, and rainfall has dropped by around 35% over the past 50 years. Spain is in for another hot, climate-catalyzed summer.
- Narrative B, as provided by Ft. It's easy to dismiss any extreme weather event as a consequence of climate change, but in reality, they're usually influenced by a myriad of factors that have nothing to do with such beliefs. More research is needed before we can establish any direct causal link between the two.
