Dry winter drains reservoirs, ruins crops in Spain, Portugal
ACEREDO, Spain — Roofs peeking out of the water have become a common sight every summer at the Lindoso reservoir in northwestern Spain. In especially dry years, parts would appear of the old village of Aceredo, submerged three decades ago when a hydropower dam flooded the valley.
But never before has the skeleton of the village emerged in its entirety in the middle of the usually wet winter season.
With almost no rain for two months and not much expected any time soon, the ruins of Aceredo are dredging up a mix of emotions for locals as they see the rusted carcass of a car, a stone fountain with water still spouting and the old road leading to what used to be the local bar.
“The whole place used to be all vineyards, orange trees. It was all green. It was beautiful,” said 72-year-old José Luis Penín, who used to stop at the bar with pals at the end of a day’s fishing.
“Look at it now,” said Penín, who lives in the same county, pointing at the cracked, yellow bed of the reservoir. “It’s so sad.”
While the arid zones of the Iberian Peninsula have historically experienced periods of drought, experts say climate change has exacerbated the problem. This year, amid record levels of low or no rainfall at all, farmers in both Portugal and Spain, who are growing produce for all of Europe, are worried that their crops for this season will be ruined.
In the last three months of 2021, Spain recorded just 35% of the average rainfall it had seen during the same period from 1981 to 2010. But there has been almost no rain since then.
According to the national weather agency AEMET, in this century, only in 2005 has there been a January with almost no rain. If clouds don’t unleash in the next two weeks, emergency subsidies for farmers will be needed, authorities said.
But Rubén del Campo, a spokesman for the weather service, said the below-average rainfall over the last six months is likely to continue for several more weeks, with hopes that spring will bring much-needed relief.
While only 10% of Spain has officially been declared under a “prolonged drought,” there are large areas, particularly in the south, which are facing extreme shortages that could impact the irrigation of crops.