Characterization and tendences of agricultural water use in Guadalquivir basin [Spain] | Situación y tendencias del uso agrícola del agua en la cuenca del Guadalquivir

Spanish; Castilian. En octubre de 2000 entró en vigor la Directiva Marco de Aguas (DMA) que prescribe la utilización de principios y herramientas económicas para alcanzar sus objetivos ecológicos. Concretamente, el artículo 5 de la Directiva promueve la realización de un análisis económico de los usos del agua para cada Demarcación, que incluye el pronóstico de los indicadores y directrices económicas al horizonte 2015. Este trabajo presenta la metodología y resultados del análisis económico del sector agrario de la Cuenca del Guadalquivir realizado en este contexto. La agricultura es el principal consumidor de agua, con una tendencia al alza y en creciente competencia con el resto de los usos, para los que se esperan importantes crecimientos futuros. Estos resultados muestran la fotografía que deberá tenerse en cuenta en el diseño de las políticas hídricas presentes y futuras en general, y en particular en la elaboración de los Programas de Medidas prescritos para el año 2009 por la Directiva.

English. European Directive 2000/60/CE establishes the communitarian framework on water policy and it requires all inland and coastal waters to reach good ecological status by 2015. Water Framework Directive's (WFD) article five required river basin characterization by 2005 in terms of economic analysis of water use, as a previous step for river basins management plans to achieve the Directive objectives. This paper illustrates the methodology and results for agricultural water use for the Guadalquivir River Basin (Southern Spain), which extends over a surface of nearly sixty four thousand square kilometers (double of Belgium size), with a population over five million people. It is a typical Mediterranean climate region with periodic drought phenomena and where irrigation consumes 85 por ciento of water resources. This economic analysis of current water uses offers a view on the importance of economic activity on pressure and impacts over resources at the present moment (baseline scenario 2001), clarifying the relation between technical and economics information. It also provides with the tendencies scenario (2015) based on the foreseen evolution of key drivers of agricultural water use. This analysis should allow stakeholders to identify the gap between the predicted situation and the Directive objectives in order to elaborate River Basin Management Plans. It should also help to evaluate existing information suitability to Directive objectives and determine the need of new data. Following the DPSIR (driving forces-pressure-state-impact-response) scheme, this research identifies the main key factors for estimating the pressure on the resource, assessing the quantitative (water consumption) and qualitative (pollution) pressure for the resource and prognosticates the evolution of these key elements in the future, in which CAP reform is taken into account. Results indicate a contained future increase of agricultural water consumption (2 por ciento) and an increased competence with other water uses (urban and tourist), which should be considered for the future elaboration of the Program of Measures in the River Basin.