Spain and Portugal struggle with extreme drought conditions

MADRID: Spain and Portugal are grappling with a devastating drought which has left rivers nearly dry, sparked deadly wildfires and devastated crops – and experts warn that prolonged dry spells will become more frequent.

Nearly all of Portugal has suffered extreme drought conditions during the last six months, which has not happened since 2005.

A majority of Spain has also received considerably less rain than it normally would.

“It’s a ruinous situation,” said Jose Ramon Gonzalez, a small rancher in Spain’s normally rainy northwestern region of Galicia.

Due to the scarcity of grass, Gonzalez was forced to spend thousands of euros to buy fodder for his cattle in July, four months earlier than normal.

“There are rivers, springs, which neither I, at the age of 45, nor my parents, nor my grandparents, have seen dry which have dried up,” he said.

About 1.38 million hectares of grains, sunflowers and olive trees have been affected by drought or frost in Spain as of the end of October, according to Spanish farming insurance agency Agroseguro.

It has dished out more than 

200mil (RM974mil) in compensation this year.

“You feel helpless like when you are sick, you can’t do anything. This sickness is called drought,” said Vicente Ortiz, a farmer and rancher in Spain’s central Castilla-La Mancha region.

Ortiz said his grain harvest has plunged 70% from last year and he expects to harvest half as many olives.

The situation is just as dire for farmers across the border in neighbouring Portugal.

The dry fields and forests have fuelled wildfires, which killed 109 people this year in Portugal and five in Galicia, many dying in their cars as they tried to flee the flames.

Water reservoirs are at abnormally low levels.

In Portugal, 28 of the country’s water reservoirs in October were at less than 40% of their storage capacity.

In Spain, the water reservoirs along the Tagus River, which empty into the Atlantic near Lisbon, were as of Nov 13 at less than 40% of their capacity.

The levels were even lower in the Douro River further north and the Segura River, which is used to irrigate crops in southeastern Spain.

Experts warn droughts are likely to become more frequent and severe in the region.

“Spain has since 1980 shown signs of climate change, which have increased since 2000,” said Jorge Olcina, a geographer who heads the University of Alicante’s climate institute.

“The country’s climate tends to have more subtropical characteristics.

“Higher temperatures and rarer and more intense rains. So climate-related risks – heatwaves and rain and droughts and floods, will increase in the coming decades,” he added. — AFP