Re: Spains drying up
 

Weather is certainly changing in some parts of Spain.

Re: Spains drying up
 

Just west of Valencia was bad too, for about 15 minutes.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...46b5888fe0.jpg

Re: Spains drying up
 

Sen an up date there was a fair bit of damage and injuries. Hope everything was OK with you and yours.

Re: Spains drying up
 

The most obvious thing that now effects us as a result of this weather is the price of Olive Oil. The crop has been so badly effected that it is nearly 10 euros a litre compared to around 5 euro a year ago!!!

Re: Spains drying up
 

Thanks. Just 3 trees down from our garden, also known as free heating for next winter. One of them fell in the road so the Bombers kindly cut that one in to manageable pieces. It really was a localized freak storm. Only our town was hit with many roads closed. As far as I know there were no injuries but a couple of cars and walls were damaged.

This one was resting on the fiber feed for our street. The one for our house is the small one underneath. Thankfully it wasn't damaged or we would have a teenager whining more than usual for a few days.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...cc28e565b0.jpg

Re: Spains drying up
 

Yet another report of illegal water wells. This one is 51 wells in Mazarrón, Murcia

https://www.h50.es/investigadas-18-p...zarron-murcia/

Re: Spains drying up
 

Another arsonist arrested. The fire occurred around twelve months ago. A 62-year-old man, who had been a forest firefighter and who on the date of the event was working on prevention work, was arrested.
https://www.granadahoy.com/granada/G...825617752.html

Re: Spains drying up
 

On the 15th August ( national holiday), I saw a red car crawling around our house. They ( two people from the Junta de Andalucia) came back and asked me if I could move the pile of brushwood I was working on. He explained they were checking if any of the land was irrigated or has been in the last five years. Their aerial photo had one sq kilometre highlighted with our land bang in the middle.

They might have found some sinners. Our village “ alcalde” says they might get a fine.

The joke is that apart from the cost of two people working on dia de Assuncion, they could have fined 20 folk with ease . Just look for a “ road crossing” two inch wide channel cut across the road and then very badly repaired to get a water pipe across. I dare say that would create them too much work.

You wouldn't think so but all the land in our large valley is secano.

Yes, a very poor harvest in prospect.

Re: Spains drying up
 

haveIf you have land that was secano, and install a water supply from a legal group of irrigators and paid to buy your share of the cooperative, does that make your land now designated as irrigated? Similarly does the same apply if you dig a legal, registered well on your land?

Re: Spains drying up
 

No such scheme in our area. There were several attempts but they were thwarted by eco considerations.

If you apply to dig a legal well, I am of the belief that you wouldn’t get permission to use the water for irrigation. Ours was for the house, garden and livestock. We were given an annual quota. Quite generous but not if you are watering trees each and every day.

We saw the well drilling co , drilling another borehole. Why doesnt the Junta de A insist no paperwork no can drill? He would go out of business overnight but……..

Re: Spains drying up
 

they do. the borehole we had (its not been used for years, although its still functional) at the car park was "10 grand cash, and i come at night, no licence".

I cant help thinking that a giant machine some 20 metres high, with lights all over it during the middle of the night, making all that noise.. would attract alot more attention than doing it in the day time. :confused:

Re: Spains drying up
 

Well floods and storms have arrived.
https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/516...ro-importante/

Re: Spains drying up
 

It rained for about 30mins this morning... Nothing to write home about...
Almost cloudless sky here in the mountains inland of Albir now, temp got to 27c earlier, was nice after the relentless 36c plus everyday...
BUT back to hot again in the week......

Re: Spains drying up
 

Will be going to Spain next week Sunday. Checked and right now between 28-30c near Lloret, so not much change. Even in Ireland we are supposed to reach 24/25c next week and just posted some pictures in the wildfire thread. Nowhere safe from them these days.

Re: Spains drying up
 

Red alerts for Madrid La Mancha and Toledo
Yellow alerts for much of the country.


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...893d493258.png
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...35cd251483.png

Re: Spains drying up
 

theres been tornados in torremilinos and nerja / torrox costa !

Re: Spains drying up
 

i read that olives were down to under 50% on last year. explains why olive oil is now 10€ a litre.

Re: Spains drying up
 

Yep really bad, our friends who live further up the mountain usually get something like 140kilos of olives from their trees (the local Co-Op harvest them) and this year they reckon maybe less than half..
They dont do it for the money as they get bottled oil back, but I always look forward to the small bottle we get each year as its always from the first pressing. No good to cook with, but to use for dressing and to dip bread into, it cannot be beaten....

Re: Spains drying up
 

... and last year was terrible due to the heat. We had none on our trees last year - this year we have a few kilos

Re: Spains drying up
 

And on the news now it shows the devastation to crops due to the storms last night. All this means that olive oil will continue to increase in price As a result they call it the liquid gold. Apparently the producers are having to beef up security as last week a few places had their tanks stolen.

Re: Spains drying up
 

I can echo the above in that all the olive trees around us have virtually nothing on them.

Re: Spains drying up
 

our trees are loaded this year..... They do get a drip of water 3-4 days a week though.... A lot of water here outside of Gandia

Re: Spains drying up
 

Good quality rain here in the Poniente. Our olive trees are going to give us an average harvest amazingly. Most around us will have another miserable harvest. My neighbour is going to prune his trees without olives before harvest time. Makes sense to stagger the work.

Unsurprisingly , supermarket sales of olive oil is dropping . Price? Taste change? French farmers are being encouraged to switch from vines to olives….. Reason is that EU wine production is up but consumption is down. More people switching to craft beers…..

Big protest in Cordoba on the 5th against lack of support for farmers from government and stricter rules from the EU.

Re: Spains drying up
 

Seems like olive farming is making a come back in Spain.

Re: Spains drying up
 

i am pretty sure it is the worlds largest producer of olive oil and has been for a while now..

Re: Spains drying up
 

Jaen province has been suffering where I am. Hottest April for a long, long time and - "Thousands of inhabitants in the Andalusian city of Jaen even went so far as to organise an “El Abuelo" procession to beg for rain on May 1, bringing out their Christ statue to reinforce their prayers. It was the first time the statue had been brought out of the church basement since 1949."

Re: Spains drying up
 

My olive trees in central Italy have no fruit this year. A cold and wet May followed by a boiling July. The oil price is very high and the potential harvest is terrble. That's farming.

Re: Spains drying up
 

Yep around 70% of the worlds Olives and Oil is produced here....
However much of it is for export....

Re: Spains drying up
 

the "Dana" did not do much...

https://www.levante-emv.com/medio-am...-91739980.html

https://estaticos-cdn.prensaiberica...._default_0.jpg

Re: Spains drying up
 

time to start building canals or pipelines from the North to the South maybe...

Re: Spains drying up
 

It is a great illustration of misrepresentative information. How many of those reservoirs are not for water supply rather that are for hydro electric purposes?

It also takes time for surface run-off to flow down pipes or through the the ground to reach the water courses . It is not going to happen over night. There are numerous factors, relating to Meteorological and physical characteristics which affecting run-off.

Re: Spains drying up
 

Please tell us how you would over come the political issues, The environmental issues and the energy cost issues associated with just one scheme let alone the multitude of them required to service the south.

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Yeah, I forgot this is a country bordering on 3rd world status..

But, it would be less costly than building desalination plants along the coasts.

Re: Spains drying up
 

There’s been hardly any rain in the mountains of Tarragona. People have never known it like this before

Re: Spains drying up
 

The EU has just podded out 70 billion of our money to Spain for regeneration. Where is that going? The solar farm mafia?

The water situation needs a Victorian engineering approach. Pipelines, proper admin, desalination plants ,tourist tax, increase in water rates, charge for using illegal wells………..

The Rules dam doesn't even have water take off apparently.

Re: Spains drying up
 

Maybe read up about desalination plants. The water from them has to be mixed with ground water. They have huge energy costs associated with running them too.

Re: Spains drying up
 

The hydro dams here in Galicia were constructed under Franco's regime. His government gave some permissions to the eclectic company which is responsible for them. They can do what they like with the water. They are allowed to produce electricity and run them until dry. That is a little bit of information that came to light in the recent past. No doubt if we have that here then the same will be in other parts of Spain.

Re: Spains drying up
 

If you wish to know more about soil conditions influencing the behaviour of rain water run-off. This video does a good job of helping to explain the complexities.
I am grateful I did not try to explain this above. He can do a much better job than me. You might want to look at other videos on his channel as they are also related to the subject of water, storage, control and conservation.

Re: Spains drying up
 

I guess you did not read the article..

Re: Spains drying up
 

If the US can build a pipeline from Northern Canada to the Gulf then little Spain can do it..

I'd bet Brussels would finance the scheme....