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Ecology and Water management in Catalonia Number 25 - january 2000 Editorial Ecological status of rivers and water management in Catalonia Narcís Prat Infrastructures and resources. Do we need water from the Rhone? Jesús Carrera The environmental taxation system and the new water culture Enric Tello Municipalities and the new Water Act Carlos Padrós & Lucia Casado Irrigation agriculture and sustainability Xavier Coll Interview with Marta Lacambra Lluís Reales Environmental legislation Ignasi Doñate News Johanna Cáceres Ecology of Leisure Xavier Duran

Editorial

Towards a new model for water management

A few months ago, just before the end of the previous period of office, the Catalonian Parliament passed the Llei d’Ordenació, Gestió i Tributació de l’Aigua (Water Planning, Management and Taxation Act). Both European and Spanish dynamics contributed to the joint consensus of all the social bodies involved in the management of the water resources in Catalonia. It was an extremely significant and urgent agreement bearing in mind previous failures.
The new act is an excellent starting point for a positive move forward in the implementation of a sustainable model of water resource management in Catalonia. The investment policy that only gave priority to water collectors, treatment plants and storage has been rendered obsolete. It was necessary in the past, but it is now time to move forward towards a model that encompasses water management in an integrated fashion, one that maintains and improves the ecological state of aquatic ecosystems and which guarantees access to this resource, but from a rational and sustainable use of water. This is the spirit of the new Act and the task that l’Agència Catalana de l’Aigua or ACA (Catalan Water Board) has to develop.
L’ACA has a complex, difficult task ahead. Leaving climatic changes to one side, and how these are affecting the Mediterranean areas, this new body, as stated by Narcís Prat in his article, has to be capable of implementing a water management model in Catalonia where the conservation and regeneration aspects are just as important as those of economics or resource capture. The Professor of Ecology at the University of Barcelona (UB) reviewed the last few years of water resource management in our country –based on a strategy of offer – and proposed an alternative management that would take into account sustainability criteria.
For his part, Jesús Carrera, from l’Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria de Camins, Canals i Ports (Higher Technical School of Civil Engineering) at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), tackles the polemic question of water transfers from the Rhone. Carrera argued in favour of transfers from the Rhone as being a good solution for Catalonia, based on a close scrutiny of the demand, centred on Barcelona and the surrounding area, the available resources and its quality.
The following contribution is centred on the environmental taxation system. The UB professor, Enric Tello, explains why the water war broke out and described the new taxation scheme behind the new Act and how this made it possible to put an end to the conflict. The legal aspects, and specifically the central role played by the municipalities within the new organisational model are dealt with by Lucía Casado and Carles Padrós, both professors of administrative law at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
The point of view of those people living in the country cannot be ignored in this issue dedicated to water resources. The President of the Junta de Govern dels Canals d’Urgell (the Governing Council for the Urgell Canals), Xavier Coll, reminds us of how agriculture was the main driving force behind the development of the lands in the west. In this sense, having the required water resources available would allow this development to be consolidated which, according to Coll, must include measures for modernisation and greater efficiency in the use of the resources.
The present General Secretary of the Catalan Ministry of the Environment, Marta Lacambra, is the subject of this issue's interview, and this is no accident as Lacambra played a key role in seeking consensus and the process of drawing up the new Act. Finally, to complete issue 25 of the magazine «Medi Ambient. Tecnología i Cultura»(The Environment. Technology and Culture) we have the habitual and knowledgeable legal analysis by environmental lawyer Ignasi Doñate
 

Lluís Reales
Editor of Medi Ambient. Tecnologia i cultura

Ecological status of rivers and water management in Catalonia

Narcís Prat
Department of Ecology, University of Barcelona

Traditionally, water management has been directed at covering an ever-growing deficit with new offers of water supply. This model must be replaced by another, based on the rational and sustainable use of the resource and the protection of the environment, as envisaged by new legislation on this matter. Indeed, the water management of the immediate future lies in satisfying, at the same time, human and environmental needs. To guarantee success in this undertaking, one must first examine why management has proved unsatisfactory in the past and what is the best management strategy for a small and very active Mediterranean country like ours.
 

On the threshold of the third millennium, water management in Catalonia and Europe is at a decisive point reflected in important changes, which will soon come about, in legislation. In Catalonia, with a law that has only been passed (the Law on Water Regulation, Management and Taxation), in Spain, with the Water Law Reform and, finally, in Europe with the imminent adoption of the Framework Water Directive. The same key words appear in all three laws, «rational and sustainable use of water», «preservation, protection and improvement of the environment» or «maintenance or improvement of the ecological status». The objective of water management for the next millennium centres as much on guaranteeing the resource as on doing so whilst maintaining or improving the ecological status of aquatic ecosystems.

Water Management in Catalonia: new perspectives, old problems

Until late into the 20th century the only aim of water management in Catalonia and Spain was to guarantee the availability of the resource by whatever means, fetching it from wherever was necessary (supply strategy), afterwards came concern for the quality of drinking water (a resource fit for consumption). However, the environmental problems linked to the overexploitation of resources and the degradation of aquatic ecosystems have only recently begun to worry us, when treatment through water treatment plants has been seen not as a restraint on growth, but as a necessity. It appears that water management for the next millennium will centre on the preservation of the environment without forgetting the right of all people to a guarantee of quality and quantity of water supply.
One might ask if in Catalonia a Mediterranean country of sporadic and irregular rainfall, it is possible to establish a water management policy with the environment as its main concern. Can we really guarantee high levels of a quality supply and at the same time have rivers of a good ecological status?
Catalonia has a very active industry and use of water is intensive when resources are limited and there is strong competition for resources, both between consumers and between them and the environment. As a consequence, the natural ecosystems have suffered considerable degradation, through both the overexploitation of resources and the uses water is put to, with the corresponding pollution. For this reason, and despite the effort made to improve water treatment, we have had many problems so far restoring the ecological status of our aquatic ecosystems.
Furthermore, Catalonia is large country and the problem of water is not the same in irrigated farmlands as in urban and industrial areas. According to the hydrological plans for the inland basins and the Ebro, all together in Catalonia, urban and industrial demand is a third of the agricultural demand (1,039 hm3/year as opposed to 2,522 hm3/year). However, these values are very different if we compare the Segre basin, with an agricultural demand of 846 hm3/year and a domestic and industrial demand of only 41 hm3 with the Baix Llobregat, where these proportions are inverted (50 hm3/year for agriculture and 527 hm3/year domestic and industrial). The different distribution of resources and demand has already given rise to several transfers, such as from the river Ter to the Barcelona area or from the Ebro to Tarragona.
Up to now, water management has been directed at covering an ever-increasing deficit with new supplies of water. This model cannot stay the same in the future. It must be replaced with a different model which complies with the stipulations of the legislation mentioned at the beginning of this text. If our future is to contain management which satisfies at once both human and environmental needs, we must examine why it has proved so unsatisfactory in the past and what is the best management strategy for a small and very active Mediterranean country.

Lessons from the immediate past: the Water Treatment Plan for Catalonia

An important effort
Catalonia is outstanding for its efforts to implement a Water Treatment Plan aimed at complying with the European Directive on water treatment which envisaged that water treatment in cities with over 2,000 inhabitants should be undertaken before the year 2000. This effort has been held up as an example for many Mediterranean countries and has been carried out thanks to the boost received from an entity which was created for precisely that purpose: the Water Treatment Agency, attached to the Ministry of the Environment of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia. This entity has recently published a report on the Treatment action undertaken in the period from 1992 to 1998. The figures are quite impressive. We have gone from 90 treatment plants in service and 53 under construction, to 210 working plants and 48 under construction, as well as 39 planned for the future, which will give a total of 297 large water treatment plants to be in service in 2001. For localities of fewer than 2,000 inhabitant equivalents (still awaiting water treatment), plans are to build 1,700 wastewater treatment systems between 2001 and 2005 thus completing the Water Treatment Plan for Catalonia. We are also informed in the opuscule of the Sludge Treatment Programme, that today most sludge is still sent to dumps or dumped in the sea (over 125,000 tons/year), but that this will be composted or thermal-dried before the year 2001, following the installation of co-generation systems in large treatment plants (up to 80 MW of power).
The same text also contains information on the results of the Industrial Waste Water Treatment Programme, which has reduced the pollutant load to be treated from 82,564 tons of COD/year to 44,875, with the greatest reduction in public river-bed dumping (from 63,141 to 18,421 tons/year). To this end 436 GDP (Gradual Decontamination Programmes) have been implemented in Catalan Industry, and 516 subsidies have been granted to companies to condition their treatment or pre-treatment systems. Finally, we are informed that 8,466 inspections were carried out in companies.

The results: some better than others
The results of these efforts have been evaluated by the Water Treatment Agency through the Simplified Water Quality Index (SWQI), an index of water quality that varies from 0 to 100 and which uses 5 physico-chemical parameters: temperature, COD, suspended matter, dissolved oxygen and conductivity. Between 1992 and 1998 the number of checkpoints has increased from 55 to 143. According to this physico-chemical index, the water quality in Catalan rivers has improved considerably. The rivers Foix, Tordera, Besòs and Llobregat (traditionally the most polluted in Catalonia) have undergone a remarkable recovery, according to this index. This can be seen in table 1, where the points sampled in those two years have been divided in to 5 categories, although very few points were sampled in 1992. In view of these results, one could feel quite satisfied with the outcome of the Water Treatment policy and believe that our rivers are clean and full of life.
In order to verify this recovery of the Tordera, Besòs, Llobregat and the Foix, we have compared SWQI data with data on the biological quality of these same rivers from the study carried out on their ecological quality by the ECOBILL team of the University of Barcelona, at the behest of the Department of the Environment of the Provincial Council of Barcelona. This study uses the FBILL index, a biological index, which uses macroinvertebrate organisms (insects, snails, etc. which measure over 250 micra) as indicators of water quality. Values vary from 0 (abysmal quality) to 10 (excellent). You can find further information on this index, its formulation and its relation with the SWQI index, in the different publications mentioned in the bibliography. In fig.  ??? a map shows the biological quality of the four rivers at all the points sampled in the summer of 1998.
As you can se from table 1 and figure 1, there are still many points with abysmal biological quality in our rivers (FBILL values of less than 4), up to 15% of points studied, particularly in the lower parts of the rivers and many are in the Besòs (red and orange points in fig. 1), whereas according to the SWQI, this is true for only 5% of points. In the middle category (FBILL of 54-5), that is, polluted rivers, it is true for 18%, while in places where the biological community differs very little from the natural community, the figure is 37% (whereas the SWQI increases this value to 52%). However, points in FBILL category 6-7 are not necessarily of good quality, many of them have undergone alteration (especially eutrophy). Physico-chemical index values do not give enough information on the ecological quality of river water. The truth is that the Water Treatment Plan may have improved the physico-chemical quality of Catalan rivers, but is has not obtained the same degree of regeneration of its biological quality.

Reasons for the difference
The aim of the current Water Treatment Plan is to comply with the European Directive water purification, which sets only two parameters to measure the efficiency of treatment, the BOD and Suspended Solids, which must be fewer than 25 ppm on exiting the treatment plant. The Plan to fulfil this Directive consists of rapidly building infrastructure (collectors, treatment plants), with the emphasis on speed and forgetting the fact that the receiving media are Mediterranean rivers with flows which are very low or non-existent on occasion. Differences are also due to the fact that the chemical index used to gauge the Plan's efficiency (SWQI) is not a good indicator of the water quality of fluvial ecosystems, which must be measured with biological indicators as stated in the framework Water Directive.
Although one must recognise the efforts made in recent years and the improvement in the biological status of some rivers obtained through water treatment, (in 1992 the number of points included in the «polluted» category, that is biological index 5 or lower, in the four rivers studied was as high as 50%), the situation is far from satisfactory, particularly if one takes into account the millions invested (up 40,000 million pesetas per year).
The fact that Mediterranean rivers, such as the Besòs or the Foix have not recovered their water quality is due to several factors, the most important being:
• Lack of dilution of the flow discharged by treatment plants.
• The high concentrations of ammonia treatment plants (even the biological types) dump in rivers.
The Water Treatment Plan for Catalonia forgot that ammonium with a high pH turns into ammonia which is highly toxic in very low concentrations and this means that fish and the majority of macroinvertebrates when ammonia values are as low as 1 ppm, when some plants dump concentrations as high as 20 or 30 ppm. For this reason, the fish and invertebrate fauna have not recovered in most of the lower stretches of the Besòs, Congost, Tenes, Ripoll or the Rubí or the Gurri gullies downstream from the Vic treatment plant.
The importance of ammonium can be seen in all the stretches of river downstream from the large biological treatment plants built in recent years in the lower Besòs, Foix and Llobregat. In table 2 is a list of the top ten treatment plants in maintenance costs (according to the Agency's advance budget for 1999) and their effect on the environment are given a value. All the plants mentioned are currently biological, with the exception of the Sant Adrià del Besòs plant, which is physico-chemical.
These plants have problems because of the mixing of industrial and domestic water, which makes treatment difficult; (it is easy to work the Ribes de Fresser plant, for example, but far more complicated to run the one at Igualada). The real problem, though, lies in the design (nobody thought of the ammonia levels on exit as a problem) and in the fact that nobody has taken into account that the receiving medium is very often a dried-up river or a river lacking the necessary power of dilution. This makes the regeneration of the aquatic ecosystem impossible. It may be said that many Catalan river today have their source at treatment plants (the Congost at the Centelles plant and later at the Granollers plant, the Ripoll at the Sant Llorenç Savall plant and again at Castellar del Vallés, the Caldes gully at the Caldes de Montbui plant, the Foix at the Vilafranca del Penedès plant, the Rubí gully at the Terrassa plant and so on).
The large biological treatments of Catalonia leave the water with a BOD, a COD and an ammonia content with values of between 5 and 10 times those found in any river (and which should not exceed 5, 10 and 0,5 ppm respectively). The river therefore must be sufficiently high to dilute these substances and clean itself. This is not the case of Mediterranean rivers, which are always very low and for this reason the current Water Treatment model does not guarantee the recovery of our rivers, despite the improvements there have been in some of them. In short, the evaluation of water treatment in Catalonia is not as optimistic or satisfactory as it appears in the opuscule published by the Agency. The improvements in some rivers cannot hide the fact that the recovery of life in most rivers has been very disappointing (many politicians and managers have not been able to keep their promises of taking a swim downstream from the treatment plants they inaugurated).

Ecological status, much more than water quality

As aquatic ecosystems, rivers are much more than the life in the water, as equally, or more, important are the riparian communities. The bank is a strip of floodable land next to the river which goes from the low-water channel to the area covered by the most abundant flooding, making the vegetation there special, linked to the presence of the water which the trees can reach through their roots. The riverside system is a real nest of biodiversity and a key element as a biological corridor connecting different ecosystems of Catalonia. They are true biological corridors that guarantee that the protected areas of Catalonia do not become islands in the midst of an urban or semi-urban system.
For this reason, the qualification of the river bank is extremely relevant to the ecological status of rivers. For Mediterranean rivers, we have designed an index which qualifies the riverside ecosystem with values from 0 to 100 (QBR index). This score is reached by considering four characteristics of the riverside system (each of them with a value of 25 points). The characteristics to be measured are:
• Coverage of the vegetation. Good coverage means there has been no alteration to impede the growth of the plant community on a continuing basis.
• Structure. This involves evaluating the structural complexity of the vegetation and it can be said that it is an indirect evaluation of the system's biodiversity.
• The potentiality of the system for housing a large variety of riverside trees, a measure of the system's complexity which must be weighted for each different geomorphological type of river. This includes a measure of naturalness according to whether the species found be autochthonous or «imported».
• The permanent alteration of the course of the river by Man, evaluating the presence of infrastructures in the stretch studied.
A detailed explanation of the way this index is calculated and applied to the Llobregat, Foix, Tordera and Besòs can be found in other publications (see bibliography). According to the index value, we have five grades of quality, which are:
• Unaltered, very good quality, natural state:  values > 95
• Beginnings of alteration, good quality: 75-90
• Considerable alteration, fair quality: 55-70
• Serious degradation, poor quality: 30-50
• Extreme degradation, abysmal quality:  values <35
Using the data from studies carried out by the Ecology Department for the Department of the Environment of the Provincial Council of Barcelona, the situation of the banks of the four rivers mentioned can be evaluated. As can be seen from table 3, the situation of the woodlands on the banks of the rivers studied is generally poor as almost 60% of the places visited have a very poor or abysmal QBR value and only 7% can be qualified as being in a natural state. Figure 2 shows a map with the QBR value for the same points in which the biological quality was studied and as you can see, the lower parts are in an abysmal state with regard to riverside woodland (again shown in red and orange). However, in some parts the values are relatively low. Riverside degradation has different causes: the development of river banks, aggregate extraction, intensive stockrearing near the river or excessive frequentation. On occasion, the Water Treatment Agency has even built its collectors in the middle of a river, destroying its riverside ecosystem. On other occasions, the public administration itself (in particular the Water Agency) has made regeneration impossible in the river banks through channelling or river-cleaning operations to avoid the problem of flooding. This is because they consider that the trees might block bridges and therefore it is better to chop them down (however, no one considers that the bridges could be to blame because they are not well built). The conservation of rivers as ecosystems requires the riverside system to be in a good state of health and therefore it should be taken into account when defining the ecological status of rivers.

The ecological status of Mediterranean rivers

Measuring the ecological status of rivers requires an integrating index which defines the overall ecological quality of the aquatic ecosystem. The concept of ecological status has its origin in the framework Water Directive proposal of the European Commission 1997 (COM(97) 49 final. 1997) and is an administrative concept which includes earlier ideas typical of scientific literature, such as «ecosystem health» (Munawar) or «ecological integrity» (Karr). As we have said repeatedly, defining ecological status is one of the key elements in the 1997 Directive proposal and is therefore essential to water management in the coming century. The definition of ecological status can be found in the preamble to the Law on Water Regulation, Management and Taxation and the «Reform of the Water law». The Law says:
«5) Ecological status: an expression of the quality functioning of aquatic ecosystems associated with surface waters. It takes into account the physico-chemical nature of water and sediments, the characteristics of water flow and the physical structure of the mass of water, but centres on the condition of the biological elements in the ecosystem».
This is the first time that a law reflects in such a clear manner the importance of its biological components in establishing the quality of a system. In the future, it will therefore be necessary to analyse the overall quality of the aquatic system, that is, to determine its ecological status. The efforts made to improve the quality of ecosystems (such as water treatment or riverbed recovery operations) or actions which have the opposite effect (incomplete water treatment, channelling, aggregate extraction etc.) will be valued whilst paying particular attention to the community of aquatic organisms, including the situation of the river banks.
It is obvious that the assessment of ecological status will be a relatively complex operation and will require teams of experts from several disciplines to carry it out. All the aquatic communities (plants, invertebrates, fish, other vertebrates) and the river banks (vegetation, structure) must be studied and the key physico-chemical parameters must be identified and even the geomorphology of the river. The European Directive proposal itself has not yet developed a way to do this and it appears that it will leave each country to develop its own system, but it must be comparable to those of other countries.
A first approach to the problem could be to use an index of rapid characterisation, which takes different parts of the ecosystem into account. This is what we have done in the ECOBILL research group of the University of Barcelona, in collaboration with the Department of the Environment of the Provincial Council of Barcelona, the Besòs Basin Consortium, the SGABSA laboratory of Sant Joan Despí, the Association of Municipalities of the Penedès-Garraf and the Rectoria Vella Foundation of Sant Celoni. We have drawn up an integrated quality index of the quality of the fluvial ecosystem, which belongs to the family of rapid assessment water quality indices, as it assesses the ecological status of the system quickly and simply, using two attributes of the area sampled:
• The FBILL biological quality index, based on macroinvertebrates.
• The QBR index, which assess the conservation status of the river banks.
The method is simple: once the FBILL and the QBR have been calculated, the ecological status is obtained from the value of both indices, as shown in Table 4. With this table, we can establish five levels of ecological status for the river, in accordance with the overall situation of the biological quality of the water and the characteristics of the river banks.
In the case of the rivers Tordera, Besòs, Llobregat and Foix, the overall data of their ecological status in 1998 can be found in Table 5. As you can see, of the 81 points evaluated in the four rivers, 42 (more than half) have a poor or abysmal ecological status and only 13 are considered as being in their natural state. They are, above all, in the headwaters of the Llobregat and the Foix and those stretches of the Besòs and the Tordera, which are within the Montseny Nature Reserve. Those in the most critical condition are at the lower ends of all the rivers, due to both the degradation of the banks and the quality of the water, which is still not properly treated or affected by flow bypasses or due to lack of dilution.
Figure 3 contains a summary of the ecological status of the four rivers, according to data gathered so far where, in addition to the biological characteristics of the water and the river banks, we have considered some physico-chemical parameters (such as ammonium or nutrients). We have defined areas which show the areas in an abysmal state (red), very poor (orange) poor (yellow), fair (green) and good (blue) and which reflects the situation of the four rivers studied, which are those with greatest pollution problems. Mediterranean rivers with a low volume of flow and high human populations, which are not valued as ecosystems, are very difficult to restore. So far, we have not managed to do it, but we must keep working to arrive at a situation in which we can boast live rivers.
We must remembered that this evaluation does not include other characteristics of rivers which should be measured in the future such as the fish population and the presence of species «imported» into rivers, such as «American» crabs, which could cause some points of good or fair quality to become worse.

Water as a resource, supply management or ecosystemic strategy?

The deficient ecological status of most Mediterranean rivers has several causes. One of the most important is the intense exploitation of resources to supply the population, for watering or to produce electricity (particularly important is the effect of mini power stations). As a consequence, some rivers dry up completely or are extremely low. The problem is mostly due to the enormous consumption of water in coastal and industrial areas of Catalonia, particularly the large population and industrial activity concentrated in the Barcelona region. The transfers carried out so far (from the Ter and the Ebro) have been undertaken to satisfy the thirst of cities and industries and those planned for the future are aimed at satisfying the deficits which it is estimated will be produced in the future. If the rivers dry up or are too low for excessive water collection, their ecological status will be very poor indeed as the river will have ceased to be (the moment it dried up) or will be unable to digest the pollution dumped in it. Do we really need so much water that it is impossible to improve the health of our ecosystems without another transfer of water to the Barcelona region?

Provisions for the future following the supply strategy
The water which supplies the Barcelona region comes from three different sources. Firstly, from underground wells, municipal or belonging to the water companies, surface water taken from the river Llobregat and finally from the river Ter. The whole system is connected by an extensive regional network supplying up to 4.5 million inhabitants. It can obtain average annual resources of almost 499 hm3, of which 173 hm3 come from underground sources, 100 hm3 taken from the Llobregat at Sant Joan Despí (Agbar) and the rest from the ATLL network (from the Llobregat at Abrera and the Ter at El Pasteral and made drinkable at Cardedeu). In the Barcelona region, consumption is currently on the increase in the region outside the city area (an increase of up to 29% in the Maresme in the period 92-95), whereas in the central area it is decreasing (up to 13.73% within the area of the Metropolitan Body between 1991 and 1996).
What will happen in the future? As ATLL (Aigües Ter Llobregat, a public company) supplies the water for the Barcelona region, by law, the company has drawn up a plan for the future up to the year 2025 based on the following premises:
• A rise in population of half a million people.
• An increase in consumption per capita.
• It is impossible to make any further savings.
• The water from the Llobregat is of poor quality and its consumption by the population must be reduced.
• Underground resources are over-exploited and the consumption of water from wells must therefore be reduced.
• The ecological flow of the Ter and the Llobregat must be increased to the sea.
This one draws the conclusion that additional resources must be brought in, as can be deduced from Table 5, based on ATLL studies published in 1999. This table describes three scenarios, the first (2025a) involves reducing the over-exploitation of aquifers continuing with potabilization at Sant Joan Despí and increasing consumption due to population growth. In the second (2025b), growth is maintained as in the previous case and, in addition, potabilization no longer takes place at Sant Joan Despí due to lack of water quality. Finally, the third scenario (2025c) plans the restraint of consumption whilst reducing the exploitation of wells and eliminating water catchment at Sant Joan Despí due to poor quality.  In all cases, the conclusion is that more water is required, as are additional resources. In short, we need another water transfer. The values were the basis for requesting a transfer of water from the Roina to Catalonia at a rate of between 10 and 15 m3/sec.

Controlling demand and the possibilities of alternative management
The arguments for reducing the exploitation of wells, improving quality, guaranteeing supply or ensuring ecological flows seem perfectly reasonable and we might think that another transfer is necessary. But the figures fail to take into account considerations which could moderate consumption and it is not clear whether we can save water or re-use treated water for municipal or industrial purposes. We have carried out an alternative calculation of water consumption in the Barcelona area using a strategy of sustainability or ecosystemic management (Table 6). This is based on:
• Sustainable exploitation of underground resources, accepting, as ATLL suggests, a reduction in exploitation from 173 to 92 hm3/year, although this figure, which is based on a survey of water companies, requires further study.
• Industrial saving. According to the study commissioned by ATLL, an additional saving can be gained in industry of 20 Hm3/year, at the most. We accept this value as a minimum which we subtract from current industrial consumption (de 156 a 136 Hm3/any).
• Domestic saving. In this respect, data from a study carried out by ATLL Madrid evaluate this saving at 62 hm3/year, but considers it very difficult to achieve and it has not been taken into account in the final assessment. With regard to losses, it is calculated that the network has only a 10% real loss, thus making any further saving unviable. As in the ecosystemic strategy we set a value of 150 l/person/day, the saving and reduction of loss are already included in this value and for this reason we have not included them individually in Table 6.
• Quality. Eliminating the Baix Llobregat potabilization plant due to the high salinity of the water, is not a sustainable measure (resources consumed must be from one's own basin). Through taking relatively inexpensive action, salinity could be reduced to less than half (controlling contributions from the Fusteret gully at Súria and others from the (piles of) rubble at Sallent) a measure already proposed by Agbar themselves. We maintain 100 Hm3/year as a resource to be used in our alternative assessment in Table 6.
• Ecological flows. The question of ecological flow is complex and in the rivers Llobregat and Ter it cannot be separated from the presence of mini power stations which divert the course. The 3 m3/sec, currently envisaged by legislation, which ought to flow in the lower Ter would give the river an acceptable ecological status were it not for the mini power stations that divert the flow. This problem must be solved by regulating the extractions of these mini power stations and setting a flow of compensation into the river for each stretch. In the case of the Llobregat, furthermore, water from the Prat treatment plant could be used as an ecological flow in its final stretch, as far upstream as Sant Boi. We, therefore, do not consider additional resources necessary for the ecological flow of the two rivers in our assessment in Table 6.
• Increase in consumption by the population. If we suppose that the population will increase by half a million and that each inhabitant has a domestic consumption of 261 litres per day, the amount of water necessary will be 636 hm3/year (Tables 5 and 6). However, with a more realistic estimate real population growth (for example 4.6 million) and a responsible consumption of 150 l/person/day urban demand would be reduced to 252 hm3/year, which is a considerable difference.
• Re-use. ATLL evaluates this at 34 hm3/year at the most, whereas the Water Treatment Agency in its annual report for 1997 planned the re-use of 283 hm3/year. If the 15% of water used by municipal services were reclaimed water, this would allow a saving of 37 hm3/year. We will use this figure in our calculations as a possible minimum.
With all these alternative calculations carried out in Table 6, where comparison is made between the real situation derived from the ATLL study, the situation forecast by ATLL for 2025 should maximum demand be met (that is, a large supply) and the ecosystemic strategy, derived from considerations in the previous sections, one might conclude that no additional resources are necessary if water management strategy is changed in Catalonia.

Towards a new water management model in Catalonia

The sustainability and rational use of water required by the new Catalan Water Law, involves solving far more complex problems than mere addition and subtraction of resources or building water treatment plants or levying water taxes. Some of them are already here amongst us, such as combating the scarcity of resources, pollution by organic micropollutants or mini power stations which do not respect flows of compensation (also called ecological flows). Others still have not had the importance attached to them that they deserve, such as the presence of invasive exotic species such as the «American» crab, jeopardise the ecological status of our rivers. Finally, sustainablility can be seen as threatened by future dangers, the effects of which we still do not know, such as climatic changes.
Water management in Catalonia must be integrated, directed at maintaining and improving the economic status of our aquatic ecosystems and requires a change of mentality and a different investment policy from the one being implemented at the moment, which centres on merely building collectors, treatment plants or water supplies. This is what we expect of the Catalan Water Agency (CWA) which must develop the Law on Water Regulation, Management and Taxation.
The bottlenecks we have identified, which could hinder the regeneration of the ecological status of our rivers, lakes, reservoirs, aquifers and marshes, can be summarised in a decalogue, and should be solved at the beginning of the next century:
1. Integration of the whole water cycle, priority objective of the CWA. In the decentralisation envisaged in this law (the setting up of the LWB, Local Water Bodies), controlling demand must be a key issue.
2. A very active and decisive policy on the use of alternative resources, such as reclaimed water from treatment plants or the desalination of salt water from coastal aquifers.
3. Changes in the design and construction of collectors and water treatment plants. For the former, we request more respect for existing river banks in cases where the collector must necessarily pass through the river bed or bank, or at least in its later restoration. The design of water treatment plants must take into account the volume of flow in the receiving medium, particularly in Mediterranean rivers.
4. The consideration of ammonium as a key element in the recovery of life in rivers and the drawing up of a plan of action for its immediate reduction in treatment plants with values exceeding 1 ppm on exit, if the river does not dilute the water from the plant in a proportion of at least 10 to 1. A study must be made of the problem of organic micropollutants and their effect on food chains.
5. An in-depth study of the salt remaining in rivers, which comes from industrial and urban waters, and can jeopardise the future regeneration of the fauna and flora of many rivers where treatment plants are being built.
6. Precise measuring of eutrophication levels and action to reduce them. This will require tertiary treatment in plants and good agricultural practice, along with solving the problem of the excess of manure.
7. A definitive solution to the problem of flows of compensation in mini hydroelectric power stations. Along many of our rivers mini power stations divert the course of the river and cause many stretches to dry up. In the upper Ter, there are 45 and 82% of the river is affected. The Cardener has 25 mini power stations and the Llobregat 55. In the case of the Llobregat, the first is 50 metres from its source and the second 100 metres away, diverting its course 15 Km and taking most of its volume of flow for most of the year as excessive diversions have been authorised. A flow of compensation must be set for each river and stretch, as programmes such as Aigües Vives (Living Water) 1999 are inadequate for minimising the effects of the lower volume of flow in the summer.
8. A detailed study of the problem of «imported» species (the «American» crab, fish) and their effects on ecosystems. This also involves the complete revision of fishing management, which nowadays is aimed more at maintaining weekend «preserve-farms» than the communities typical of Catalan ecosystems.
9. A regeneration programme for river banks suffering from degradation, which includes the control of grazing cattle (particularly in the lower areas) and a change in the freshet protection system.
10. The establishment of a system to control ecological status which allows the health of aquatic ecosystems to be assessed through the study of communities of organisms. In the case of rivers, the use of biological indices and the conservation status of their banks can be extremely helpful.
This decalogue (to which we could no doubt add many more concepts) will not be achieved unless the public is made aware enough to recognise that they are living in a Mediterranean country where water is scarce and leisure activities are not confined to the golf course. A programme of environmental education, which helps people to stop ignoring rivers, is essential to make the changes necessary for ecosystemic management.
Let us hope that the Catalan Water Agency starts as it means to go on and that we soon have a different water management model in Catalonia, where matters of ecosystem conservation and regeneration are as important as the economic aspects or the collection of the resource.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Acknowledgements. To my fellow members of the Ecobill team of the Ecology Dept. of the University of Barcelona (A. Munné, C. Solà, N. Bonada, M. Rieradevall), without whom work on the ecological status of rivers could not have been carried out. To the Department of the Environment of the Provincial Council of Barcelona for the push and support they have given us since 1994 to monitor the ecological quality of the rivers in the province of Barcelona. To the Consortium for the Defence of the River Besòs, the SGABSA laboratory at Sant Joan Despí and their River Police team, to the Inter-county Association of the Penedès-Garraf and the Rectoria Vella Foundation of Sant Celoni for collaborating in our work on rivers in the province of Barcelona. The data on water treatment I obtained from the Agency thanks to my being a member of its Board of Directors representing Depana (Natural Heritage Defence League). Data on water supply in the Barcelona region were obtained from meetings with the Committee studying water supply in Barcelona, of which I was a member, and I especially wish to thank Mr Robert Vergés, the Secretary, for his help •
 

Bibliography

• ATLL, 1999. L’abastament d’aigua a les comarques de l’entorn de Barcelona. Aigües Ter-Llobregat, 96 pàgs.
• JUNTA DE SANEJAMENT. 1998. Memòria d’activitats. 1997. Generalitat de Catalunya. Dept. Medi Ambient. 104 pàgs.
• JUNTA DE SANEJAMENT 1999. Informe de les depuradores en servei. Any 1998. Generalitat de Catalunya. Dept. Medi ambient. 55 pàgs-
• MUNNÉ, A. SOLA, C. RIERADEVALL, M & PRAT, N.;. 1998 Index QBR. Métode per a l’avaluació de la qualitat dels ecosistemes de ribera.. Estudis de la qualitat ecològica dels rius, 4, 28 pp.  Area Medi Ambient, Diputació de Barcelona
• PRAT, N. 1996 Planificar l’aigua; oblidar-se de la vida. P 15-30. In: Ecologia i territori a Catalunya. Acció Ecologista. Publicacions UAB.
• PRAT, N. 1997 Retos para la conservación de los ríos. Ecosistemas, 20/21:42-47.
• PRAT, N.; RIERADEVALL, M. ; MUNNÉ, A. SOLA, C. & CHACON, G. 1997 La qualitat ecològica de les aigües del Besòs i el Llobregat Informe 1996. Els cabals del riu Congost. Estudis de la qualitat ecològica dels rius, 2, 153 pp. Area Medi Ambient, Diputació de Barcelona .
• PRAT, N; MUNNÉ, A. BONADA, N. SOLA, C., CHACON, G. & RIERADEVALL, M. En premsa.  La qualitat ecològica de les aigües del rius Foix, Tordera, Besòs i el Llobregat Informe 1998. Estudis de la qualitat ecològica dels rius, 6,. Area Medi Ambient, Diputació de Barcelona .
 

Infrastructures and resources. Do we need water from the Rhone?

Jesus Carrera.

ETSE Camins, Canals i Ports, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Transferring water from the Rhone is a technically reasonable solution for guaranteeing a water supply to the area of Barcelona, although its cost is excessive. Even so, it would remove any incentive for the application of integrated management policies, which would be in detriment to the technological development of the region's industry. For this reason and having analysed the water resources and the infrastructure already existing in Catalonia, the author is in favour of not going ahead with it.
 

This article deals with water and, more specifically, the water supply in and around Barcelona. The subject is complex, not only because of the scientific or technical questions of which there are quite a lot, but also because of the administrative, social and political aspects. The fact is that the water situation is a multidimensional puzzle where each piece fits in with the rest in ways that are not always evident. The complexity arises in part from the very nature of water. As a physical resource, water has to do with disciplines that range from microbiology and chemistry to geology and civil engineering. From a broader perspective, water management is intimately linked with aspects that are so vastly different such as population growth, the legal structure and quality of life (and not just human life).
This complexity leads to people having deep-rooted convictions about what is a burning issue. This isn't something that is unique to Catalunya. People in Aragón and Valencia are just as emotional about it as we are here. Neither is it a Mediterranean feature. Here in Tucson (Arizona), where I'm writing from, there's an extremely heated debate going on about whether or not to artificially recharge the aquifer with water conveyed from the R. Colorado (something which I feel really proud about because nothing relating to my research has ever played a role that's been so important!). They're going to carry out a referendum in a couple of weeks.
Within this context of complexity, deep-rooted convictions, emotional build-up and obscure vested interests, the aim of this article is to briefly discuss the present situation of the water supply in Barcelona, its possible evolution in the future and the alternatives for dealing with the problems. Having stated that, the scope of the discussion obviously has to be fairly narrow.
First of all, there's the legal framework. The constitution stipulates that the State has full powers in matters of hydrological planning and it favours management by hydrographic basins. The Generalitat has exclusive powers over river basins that lie totally within the whole of Catalunya except for the Ebro basin (and a small part of the Xúquer basin). Within this region, the situation is also complex because power is divided between all of the different Ministries (I don't know if the Ministries of Education, Presidency or Culture have any powers here, but who knows). The ultimate responsibility for the supply to each household is down to the municipal councils. In the Barcelona area, however, this has been taken over by the Metropolitan Corporation.
Within this context, a public enterprise named «Aigües del Ter-Llobregat» (ATLL) was set up in 1990 to take over the functions of the Metropolitan Corporation and to supply water in general to all the municipalities that requested it. This means that ATLL provides them with the water and they (or a public utility company) distribute it to the houses. The area covered by ATLL has grown and now includes the Barcelonès, Maresme, Baix Llobregat, Alt Penedès, El Garraf, Vallès Oriental, Vallès Occidental and Anòia districts. This will be referred to as the ATLL or Barcelona area and it defines the geographical scope of this article. To be able to cover the demand for water in this area, ATLL has proposed the construction of a conveyance scheme to bring water from the River Rhone. An Advisory Scientific Committee was set up to advise the ATLL. The following is my personal opinion, which is the result mostly of the Committee debates, together with additional jobs that I've been involved in and the perspective gained from seeing how the people here in Arizona have been quarrelling over similar problems.

Present situation

The state of any water supply is defined by the demand, the available resources and the quality. Following is a brief review of these subjects within the scope of the ATLL.

Demand
The population of the area is 4.4 million inhabitants that creates a demand of around 500 hm3/year (15.8m3/s). Most of this demand (69%) is domestic and public, with the rest being industrial (31%). These data imply an average provision of 112 m3/inhabitant/year (308 litres/inhab./day), of which 77 m3/inhab./day (205 litres/inhab./day) correspond to urban demand (excluding industrial demand).
As a point of reference, average domestic demand for the world as a whole is 52 m3/inhab./year (an estimate for 1987) while in Europe it is 87 m3/inhab./year (1995). The provisions are highly variable, however, and do not seem to bear any relationship with the level of economic development. Provisions in Germany and the United Kingdom are 64 and 41 m3/inhab./year, respectively, while in France and Spain, they are 106 and 93 m3/inhab./year. Neither does there seem to be a close relationship with climate. In Greece, the figure is 42 m3/inhab./year and in Iceland 197. This variability probably reflects to different degrees the criteria used for measurement. In fact, according to the Hydrological Plan for the river basins that lie totally within the whole of Catalunya, the domestic provision in these basins is 110 m3/inhab./year (50% higher than the Barcelona area which contains 80% of the population). This disparity reflects the fact that demand in the city of Barcelona is lower. The criteria for calculation are not homogenous, however. In any case, it seems clear that demand within the scope of the study is neither excessively high nor low.
The overall demand on the regional network has remained relatively stationary in recent years. It went down slowly from 341 hm3 in 1991 to 305 hm3 in 1996 and has gone up again in the last two years. There is hardly any change throughout the year either. Maximum demand occurs during July, when it is 15% higher than the annual mean.

Available resources
To find out if there is enough water, it is necessary to compare the available resources with demand. The first question, however, is within what area should the resources be taken into account. Limiting this to the resources generated within the metropolitan area itself, it is obvious that there is not enough (at present, around 193 hm3/year for the aquifer within the area). This would require almost all of the Besòs and Llobregat rivers to satisfy the demand. This would necessitate a lot of new water conveyance schemes, although at the present time this would appear to be out of the question. For this reason, Barcelona has been conveying water from the River Ter (around 200 hm3 annually) and it is why the river basins that lie totally within Catalunya are taken as the initial area of reference. According to the Hydrological Plan, there is a demand within this area for 1302 hm3 while available resources are 1587 hm3. That is to say that in the medium term and taking into consideration all of the river basins lying totally within Catalunya, there is enough water. That doesn't say much, because it's possible that demand is inflated and that resources may have decreased. Moreover, the fact that the Muga has a lot of water doesn’t say much concerning the situation in the Metropolitan area.
In real terms, the metropolitan area obtains its resources from the sources shown in table 1.
In essence, 200 hm3 came from the River Ter, 106 from the Llobregat and 193 from different aquifers in 1994. This is sometimes said to be an under-use of groundwater (of the European countries, only Norway makes use of a smaller proportion of groundwater supplies). It should be mentioned, however, that there are not many aquifers here. I'll come back to this point later on.
After all this discussion, it still hasn't been defined whether there is or there isn't enough water. In the medium term, there are sufficient available resources (the Llobregat, aquifers and conveyance from the Ter). The question is: what happens if there's a drought? In evaluating whether the available volume is sufficient, the water supply services use the guarantee concept which is the degree to which the demand for water can be met by the supply. This is normally expressed in terms of the probability of failure.
Calculating the guarantee is not an immediate process because variations in time and space of both resources and demand need to be taken into consideration. Moreover, the state of the resources (and particularly the reservoirs) depends on the operational regulations (when and how much to open the sluice gates) and it is not always easy to sum these up. Numerical modelling is thus necessary to calculate the guarantee where the operation itself, the demand, the geometry of the regional distribution system, the input of water into the reservoirs and the operational regulations of the whole system are included. Calculating the guarantee would be precise if all of these aspects could accurately be reproduced in the model. As all this is impossible, the calculation of the guarantee is always an approximation.
The model prepared for ATLL to simulate its supply system is highly detailed. It should be born in mind, however, that the flexibility of the real system cannot be reproduced. For example, there has been a significant increase in pumping from wells in the Baix Llobregat during the last year as a result of the drought. This kind of operation is not reflected in the model, as a result of which it's likely that the model may have gone wrong when in fact water has continued to be supplied. In any case, the model is considered to be adequate as a means of responding in an approximate way to the questions that are posed.
ATLL has used this model to calculate the supply guarantee for the Barcelona area and has reached the following conclusions. Firstly, that under the present conditions, a failure occurs in 10% of the years (that is, demand cannot be satisfied every one in 10 years), even though 80% of the demand for water can be met during 99% of the months. It may be surprizing that the model gives failures when the general idea is that in practice, restrictions have never occurred. This result reflects the fact already referred to that the real system is more flexible than the model (one should remember that changes in the state of the reservoirs is not included in the model). In any case, changes in the state of the reservoirs, which are practically totally emptied every 5-10 years, gives a good reflection of the real situation and demonstrates the reliability of the model.
The evaluation of these results is subjective, but the fact that there are failures every 10 years cannot be considered satisfactory. Restrictions negatively affect tourism, industry, services and, worst of all, the overall impression given by a country. An area such as Barcelona, with over 4 million inhabitants and important growth expectations will not be able to face the 21st century without more security in terms of its water supply.
Another interesting conclusion from the model is that, to a great degree, the guarantee fails because of the need to maintain the minimum volume for hydroelectric energy production downstream from the reservoirs. On the other hand, demand should be reduced under the present conditions or there should be an additional provision of around 60 hm3/year (2 m3/s) to achieve a reasonable level of guarantee.

The quality of water and the environment
Despite the difficulties in supplying all of the demand for water, I personally consider that the most serious problem in the Barcelona area is not the quantity but more the quality. Of the three sources of water, both the Ter and groundwater sources are good but that originating from the Llobregat is bad. Treatment of the Llobregat water means that it is acceptable, but the water supply has a bad odour and taste.
The difference in quality between the water from the Ter and the Llobregat has created grievances due to the comparative inequalities between those who receive water from the Ter, which can be cooked with and has no unpleasant taste, and those who receive water from the Llobregat and have become accustomed to cook with and drink bottled water.
It should be added here that man is the origin of the problems with the water from the Llobregat (and not nature or the hydrogeology, as some would like to insist). The problems with the taste are caused by high levels of electrical conductivity and concentrations of chlorides, magnesium, sodium and potassium. The origin of these substances is the brines from mining waste in the Bages area. The second problem with the quality of the water from the Llobregat has to do with the sporadic spillage of toxic waste that compels almost permanent controls to be made of the source of water supply from the river and sometimes to it being closed.
The environmental quality of the rivers is bad. On the one hand, the volume in the lower reaches of the rivers is insufficient. This, for example, results in the River Llobregat not carrying not reaching the sea for the most part of the time due to lack of water. It also causes a deficiency of dilution at the outlets of waste water treatment plant. As a result, the levels of oxygen in many places are too low and those of non-desirable substances (for example, ammonia) too high. All of this causes a loss of diversity and the biological impoverishment of the rivers. It also contributes to the fact that the rivers give off unpleasant odours and that their value to society gets eroded more and more. This closes the cycle of degradation. The lack of a cure leads to the degradation of the river banks which leads to further deterioration of the river and further loss of appreciation. The fact is that the ecological, social and landscape values of rivers (especially the Llobregat) have disappeared, particularly in the lower reaches.
The situation isn't as bad as in other places, but it can't be described as being desirable. The fact is that concessions, especially to the small power stations, have left certain stretches of the rivers almost dry.

Future developments

The present situation is unsatisfactory but it could still get worse. Conclusions based on studies carried out by ATLL are that demand will increase and that the degradation of the quality of the existing resources will cause the use of some of these to be abandoned. The supply guarantee will diminish as a result. All of this will happen if nothing is done.
According to ATLL, the increase in demand will come about as the result of both the increase in population and per capita consumption. ATLL anticipates the population within its area to reach around five million inhabitants by the year 2025. This estimate is highly dubious. It seems probable that, in the short term, the population will not vary much. In the long term, however, a considerable increase in the population as a result of the increase in the birth rate, immigration and life expectancy cannot be ruled out. Neither can it be ruled out that people will live further and further away from the metropolitan area so that the population within that area will remain stable. The fact is that, at the present time, large metropolitan areas only appear to be growing in the Third World.
Per capita consumption may increase as the result of the trend towards living outside of the large cities and the construction of second homes. It is possible, however, that holiday homes get built beyond the limits of the area and that the increase in environmental education ends up limiting consumption. The consumption of 129 m3/inhab./year estimated by ATLL is thus highly dubious.
The result of this amount for the anticipated population gives an overall demand of 636 hm3/year (137 hm3/year more than at present). The advisory scientific committee considered this forecast to be excessive and that it was probable that this figure would not be reached. It should be said, however, that it is not totally absurd and that it should not be ruled out.
According to ATLL, things will get even worse because they foresee that it will be necessary to curb the pumping of groundwater by around 81 hm3/year for fear of contamination. This means that, in the long term, only 92 hm3/year will be covered by the local authority resources (which at present are 173 hm3/year). The scientific committee criticized this estimate due to the lack of justification. At any rate, these 81 hm3/any, added to the 137 foreseen by the increase in demand, give an increase of 218 hm3/year in demand on the regional systems.
Another aspect to bear in mind in water resource planning is climatic change. A large number of changes are occurring at the global scale as a result of human activities (diminishing of the ozone layer, the increase in CO2, NOx, SO2 and concentrations of other elements). The energy balance of the Earth is changing as a result, giving rise in turn to changes in the climatic regime. The uncertainty of the effect that some of the observed changes will have, together with the fact that climate is a highly unstable force, means that it is difficult to say what type of climatic change is to be expected. However, some things remain clear. There will be an increase in temperature. This will cause a decrease in precipitation in the form of snow and in the surface area of permanent snow in the Alps. One of the initial consequences, which is relevant for the matter in hand, is that towards the end of the coming century, the process of regulation afforded by the Alpine glaciers will have disappeared. This means that during summers that are dry, the Alpine rivers (including the Rhone) will carry much less water than at present.
Another consequence of the increase in temperature will be the increase in evaporation and transpiration (in fact, the increase is the result of increased radiation that leads in turn to an increase in the temperature). It is to be expected that this produces a certain amount of acceleration within the hydrological cycle because the increase in evaporation will cause rainfall to increase, etc. This is all at the global level. In reference to the area under discussion, we still don't know. In general, however, it's probable that this all will bring about an increase in rainfall in winter and soil dryness during the summer.
A summary of the discussion on climatic change is that: (1) it will occur; (2) we still don't know how it's going to affect us; and (3) contrary to what has been said, there is no evidence to suggest that there will be less water in the rivers in the area in question than now. Even so, it is obviously important to be on guard.

Water conveyance

Given that the present situation is unsatisfactory and that everything leads one to believe that things will get worse, ATLL proposed the advantages of bringing water from other river basins. ATLL has proposed two possibilities which are basically the conveyance of water from the Ebro and Rhone rivers. A summary of the basic features is given in Table 2 and the route in Figure 4.
Of these two alternatives, the scientific committee unanimously chose the Rhone alternative for diverse reasons. The quality of the Rhone water is better than that of the Ebro. It is also more reliable. It is highly unlikely that there is a severe drought simultaneously in the river basins within Catalunya and those of the Rhone. Neither is it very likely that the climatic change will affect both places. Moreover, there appears to be greater willingness to dispose of water (fewer social conflicts) in the case of the Rhone than in the case of the Ebro. The cost of the two options is similar. The only advantage with the Ebro is its greater flexibility. Just the pipeline, which is much cheaper than that from the Rhone, could be laid, with investments for improving the guarantee factor being left for later on (the redemption of hydroelectric concessions, etc.).
It should be added that there are other possibilities. The most obvious is conveyance schemes that bring water from the Segre. This possibility, which was suggested over 30 years ago by Victoriano Muñoz, would probably provide cheaper and better quality water than that from the Ebro or the Rhone. The fact that it hasn't been considered by ATLL may be a reflection more of social or environmental difficulties as to technical ones.
Mention should also be made of the possibility of intermediate sized schemes. The water conveyance schemes discussed up until this point are of around 300 hm3. Schemes of around 30-60 hm3 would be possible at a much lower cost per unit. Of these, the continuation of the Ebro mini-conveyance scheme and the water conveyance scheme from Rialp to the River Cardoner are the two most outstanding projects.
All of these alternatives face social, legal or environmental difficulties. A discussion of this lies beyond the scope of this article and specific studies would be required. In any case, they do offer possibilities that should be considered, at least if serious thought is to be given to the possibilities of integrated management which is commented on in the next section. For the time being, however, focus is made on the Rhone scheme as this would appear to be better than the Ebro one.
The basic features of the water conveyance scheme are as follows.

The water conveyance scheme resolves the guarantee problem. The water supply to the Barcelona area would not be affected by drought. Even more important, the management of the scheme is very simple. Defining the international agreement, together with the financial considerations, introduces a certain degree of complexity although once built, the running is relatively straightforward and income would appear to be assured. This means that the operation has a low level of risk.

The Rhone conveyance scheme would bring about important changes in the quality of water in Barcelona. Still even more important would be the elimination of the grievances due to the comparative inequalities between the quality of different water supplies. It should be stressed, however, that there are no micropollutant data. This is important because their elimination is difficult, it will end up being compulsory and the concentrations may probably be high due to industrialisation in the Rhone basin.
The ironic situation could occur where types of treatment such as manofiltration or inverted osmosis have to be resorted to (the consideration of this type of treatment would make the conveyance scheme unnecessary). It is thus important to preclude any type of commitment until this point is clarified.

By starting the conveyance scheme, there would be less pressure on the rivers and the aquifers. This would enable improvements to be made to their environmental quality. Moreover, if the scheme is not considered to have any negative environmental impact, it can be concluded that the conveyance may well have positive effects. It should be emphasized, however, that these effects will not occur automatically. This is dealt with in a separate section.
The only inconvenience with the Rhone scheme is the cost. Construction is estimated to cost around 150,000 Mpesetas. Considering that the Spanish part of the conveyance scheme would be made with a subsidy of 50%, the overhead costs for the scheme would be around 15,000 Mpesetas/year (or 50 pesetas/ m3 for the 300 hm3 anticipated per year). Variable costs would be around an additional 30 pesetas/m3. Of these, 10 pesetas correspond to pumping expenditure which is very low if one takes into consideration the total of 500 m (1.4 Kwh/m3) for pumping. Of this figure, around 150 correspond to the increase in height above sea level from the water outlet to the Cardedeu station and the rest to energy losses in the pipelines. It should be mentioned that these losses are very high (hydraulic gradient of 10/00) and that, from the perspective of sustainability, investment may need to be increased to reduce them.
The cost of 80 pesetas/m3, that would probably end up being slightly higher, is on top of treatment and distribution. Naturally, this doesn't necessarily imply a price increase of the same magnitude. If the cost were to be assumed by all the inhabitants in the area, the price increase would be around 50 pesetas/m3 (the result of dividing the total cost by the 500 hm3 of present demand). This is maybe reasonable but following recent experiences, it is doubtful that this could be introduced.

Notes on integrated management

When analyzing the construction proposal for the conveyance scheme, the Scientific Committee's most unanimous conclusion was that the solution to the problems of water supply in the Barcelona area should not be specific but that it should be approached from an integrated management perspective. This is not to say that the conveyance scheme is not necessary, but that it should be considered only as an additional element of management.
By integrated management is meant the joint use of surface waters and groundwater according to sustainable criteria. Sustainable is used here in a broad sense and includes the reestablishment of the functioning of natural systems as one of the criteria to be considered. As «integrated management» sounds fine but one doesn't really understand what it's really all about, it is maybe convenient to mention a couple of concepts.
A prime example of what should be avoided according to the criteria of integrated management is what is being proposed for countering nitrate pollution. The long-term progressive withdrawal of the resources that are at present in service does not appear to be adequate because contamination occurs bit by bit. This not only wastes the little water there is but also affects the river flora and fauna and the economy. This last point is clearly illustrated by the case of Barcelona where around 30 hm3/year are pumped to maintain the water table at a low level. Most of this water ends up in the sewers so that in addition to the cost of pumping one has to add the loss of water and cost of treatment.
A second idea for illustrating the concept of integrated management is that someone be responsible and that they feel responsible. Part of the present malfunctioning is due to the fact that nobody feels responsible. ATLL only feels responsible for the supply, the Water Board for the quality, the Public Sanitation Board for the treatment of waste water, the Ministry of Agriculture for irrigation, the Ministry of Health for the sanitary conditions of the supply and the Ministry of Industry for water saving by industry. Although each one does its job correctly (and some excellently), the truth is that none of them feels responsible for the fact that the municipal council of Sant Adrià has to spend nearly 10 million pesetas every year to pump 8 hm3/year to dry out an underground car park and which, as has already been stated in section 2.3, represents more than 10% of the present deficit, or that it has to close a supply well because too much fertilizer has been used. It must be said that the recent creation of the Catalan Water Authority (ACA) is one of the first steps in this direction.
As far as what remains is concerned, the following is an outline of the ideas that should be discussed within the context of integrated management.

Protection of the water sources
This line of action aims at improving water quality. It indirectly affects the guarantee factor because the reduction in contamination makes the abandoning of resources being exploited at the present time unnecessary. The two most obvious actions are, on the one hand, the collection of brine discharge from the saline debris on the Llobregat and Cardener rivers and, on the other, the establishment of protective measures for groundwater and the control of spillage into the rivers.
In relation to the brines, it is estimated that over 200,000 tons of salt are dissolved from the Bages saline debris every year. Around half is carried near to the sea by way of a brine collector built at the end of the 1980s. The functioning of this collector has lead to the reduction in Sant Joan Despí of the chloride content (from 734 mg/l [average 1980-89] to 382.8 [average 1990-97]), sodium (from 357 mg/l to 190 mg/l) and potassium (127 a 47). The volume of brine reaching the river can be reduced in two ways. Firstly, by tapping the outlets which still flow directly into the river and especially the Fusteret gully at Súria. Secondly, by impeding the entry of freshwater into the saline debris by diverting water entering by lateral flow (the case of Cardona) or by covering it over when this is possible. The question of eliminating the debris is not discussed here. Assuming that around 25% of total runoff could be tapped, the chloride concentration would remain at slightly over 200 mg/l, with sodium at 100 mg/l and potassium 30 mg/l. With just this action, the values of these parameters and total salinity would reach appropriate levels. The cost of the operation, redeemed over a 25-year period, would probably not exceed 0.2 pesetas/m3 per 500 hm3 of water consumed at the present time.
If a large proportion of freshwater could be prevented from getting converted into brine, more water could be passed through the collector. It would thus be feasible to make an inventory of the saline water entering the Llobregat from industry that is already treating its waste water. It is reasonable to consider that an important amount is concentrated in just a few industries and that it would be feasible to pass this through the collector as well. The conditions are not ripe, however, to be able to effectively evaluate this measure. It should be mentioned, however, that it has been done successfully on the River Besòs.
Protecting sources of groundwater is a customary action in all developed countries. More specifically, most European countries have set active policies in motion to reduce the amount of nitrates entering into aquifers. Nitrates mostly originate from the use of excessive doses of fertilizers. In addition to contaminating the water (continuous concentrations ver 50 mg/l can be dangerous for children and nursing mothers), they have the effect of inhibiting the process of natural degradation of many organic micropollutants that will have to be eliminated when the new European directive on water begins to be applied. It is possible that the only inhabitants receiving water of an approved quality similar to that which will be required in the future are those getting water from wells. The fact that these wells should be closed is therefore ironic. The reduction of nitrates requires the use of fertilizers to be cut down, a task which is not easy but one which must be faced sooner or later. As well as reducing the level of nitrates, it is also necessary to begin an active policy to define the limits of protection. In short, the protection of groundwater is costly in terms of management. The effect would be to improve the quality and, in an indirect way, the resources as well in such a way that the abandoning of wells would not be necessary.

Water regeneration and reuse
Under this title come activities orientated towards facilitating the use of treated waste water, together with treated waste water and available water of dubious quality (for example, water from mines or Barcelona groundwater).
The implementation of these policies requires the following specific actions:
1. The setting up of regeneration plant with sufficient capacity and levels of reliability to satisfy the needs of specific uses through the use of regenerated water which would free water that could be used for domestic consumption.
2. The setting up of spillage control programmes that do not imperil the subsequent reuse of the water.
3. The progressive and strategic introduction of secondary networks for the distribution of regenerated water.
4. The acquisition of experience in the exploitation and maintenance of these projects.
This option has been growing during recent years and is beginning to be customary in the United States in California, Florida and Arizona. The third step (the distribution of regenerated water) may well require large investments (pumping, pipelines, regulation  tanks) and operating costs that are comparable to the mains system. For this reason, this would require a significant thrust by the public administration right from the start (private enterprize could not take on the risk). For this reason, it is also important for this type of operation to be done within the context of integrated management that permits a certain degree of distribution of the costs amongst all of the users. The fact of the matter is that those who have tried it are content.
It is difficult to evaluate the impact of these measures. In the United States, between 10% and 30% of the total consumption is recycled in this way (it should be born in mind that under present conditions, the supply guarantee would be adequate if demand were to be reduced by 12%). Several operations that seem to be evident involve the refilling of irrigation channels in the Llobregat delta with regenerated water (this would free around 20 hm3/year in the River Llobregat at an additional cost of 5 pesetas/m3 (cost of tertiary treatment)) and the exploitation of groundwater resources under the city of Barcelona which are beginning to be used for watering parks and gardens.

Water-saving policies
Under this heading come different types of activity: environmental education, the use of low-energy consumption appliances, the reduction of losses in the distribution networks and pricing policies.

Environmental education. Consumer awareness campaigns are usually only reserved for initial action when droughts occur (as the ATLL did this spring). We feel that maintaining this flexibility is a good thing and that the capacity to save water should not be exhausted. The fact that these campaigns lead to reductions in consumption in the medium term suggests that the campaigns should be orientated more towards environmental education (what plants are more appropriate for the land, how much water is consumed, etc.) along the lines already mentioned for seeking out the involvement of the inhabitants, than to actual savings in themselves.
Cutting down losses min the distribution network. Losses in the distribution network are already low, at least in the city of Barcelona. Despite the fact that losses in other towns and cities in the area need to be analyzed, we feel that this line of action would not be too profitable. In fact, from an integrated management perspective, losses in the network do not involve water loss from the overall system. Neither are there very optimistic perspectives concerning the expectations of reducing consumption via equipment or fittings (taps, showers, cisterns). At any rate, the matter should be carefully studied and potentially innovative solutions sought after. For example, benefits could be given to the installation of low-energy consumption equipment by treating conventional equipment as a luxury (in Arizona, the use of low-energy consumption equipment is obligatory). A period of adaptation would obviously be required together with other measures so as not to cause detrimental effects on industry. What is obvious is that industry in Catalonia will end up being strengthened and more competitive if it is done here first.
To sum up, it's probable that the main effect of these measures will be to curb the growth in demand, more so than by not reducing it. At all events, the cost is relatively small.
Pricing policy. One of the most important elements in integrated management is the pricing policy. Domestic consumption is generally considered to be very rigid, in the sense that variations in the price of water do not lead to substantial changes in consumption. The LBAE questions this idea and mentions that elasticity may reach –0.57 (an increase of 1% in the price leads to a reduction in the demand of 0.57%). That means that price variations may have a certain effect on demand. The price of water in Barcelona is amongst the highest in Spain (but not in Europe) and any increase in the price should be done with care. What needs to be done is for the tariff structure to be varied.
At present, the constant part of what is paid is too high while the variable part is relatively small. The effect of this is that the average price per m3 goes down when consumption goes up. It stands to reason that this favours high consumption and in general the squandering of water. To avoid this, tariff structures are needed that have marginal (and average!) prices that increase with consumption. This, together with the tendency to curb the growth in demand of the small consumer, would be a good incentive for the large consumers (who pay high marginal prices) to consider the possibility of using regenerated water. The structure of the present tariff is justified on the basis that the constant part pays for the availability of the service (distribution network, meter, etc.). It could be argumented that these costs are not really constant but that they are higher for those who live in areas of low-density housing and who usually have higher levels of consumption. Independently of this, I believe that the justification for change should be based on the integrated management philosophy of rationalization.
Policies for directly increasing the supply guarantee
Under this heading are also included three types of measure: variations in the system of concessions to small power stations, increased rain water recharging and salinity reduction in low quality water.

Concessions to small power stations. As has already been mentioned in the discussion on the present situation, the supply guarantee is low partly because of the obligations to maintain a minimum volume for the small power stations downstream from the reservoirs. One way of improving the guarantee would be to vary the system of concessions so that there are fewer obstacles to reservoir operation. Within this operation, it would be necessary to revise the minimum volumes for ecological purposes.

Rainwater. The measures orientated at utilizing rainwater consist of protecting the recharging of aquifers. This is achieved by large artificial recharge reservoirs full of floodwater collected when rivers are in spate or via permanent collectors when a double drainage system exists (one for waste water and the other for storm water). Given that rain water has a very low salinity and that concentrations of contaminants are usually low enough for their elimination to be carried out via natural regeneration in the aquifers, these actions tend to improve the quality of the water and bring about a net increase in resources. An additional benefit is the reduction, albeit usually very small, in the maximum volume of floodwater downstream. These kinds of measures have a high cost, both in terms of investment and maintenance, and the benefits end up being so blurred that they only make sense within the context of integrated management. At all events, the investment could be slightly reduced if the actions were limited to newly urbanized areas, if they are related with regional planning (reservoirs in floodable areas) and if they are used as an extra tool for landscape architects (the recharging of reservoirs in parks). It is important to remember here that one of the conclusions in section 2 is that part of the anticipated growth in demand is attributable to migration away from the cities and the construction of second homes.

Desalination. If the previous options are not sufficient, waste water could always be desalinated (which is much cheaper than sea water). If the water coming out of a tertiary treatment plant is put through a process of inverse osmosis, the resulting water has a very low level of salinity and no micropollutants. That means that this would be even better than that resulting from the purification of the water from the Rhone. The present regulations, that would surely need to be revised, would not allow their direct inclusion in the system For this reason, it would need to go through a naturalization process in the aquifer. Although the committee does not know the exact cost of this, some figures can be given for guidance purposes. The cost of desalinating sea water by reverse osmosis in a plant capable of 60.000 m3/day (22 hm3/year) is, according to LBAE, around 72 pesetas/m3 (approximately 50 pesetas/m3 in operation with the rest redeemed at 5% over 15 years). Considering that this water does not require purification (which would remove around 30 pesetas/m3, enabling this price to be comparable with that of the water from the Rhone) and the transport surcharge is small, the resulting price would be under 45 pesetas/m3. These calculations are based on the desalination of sea water. The desalination of regenerated water would have a significantly lower cost (it could probably be done by using electrodialysis). It should be added that, under these conditions, the energy cost would be comparable to that of the water from the Rhone. Low-pressure reverse osmosis with a rejection rate of 35% (which would be poured directly into the sea) consumes 1 kwh. Experience with waste water is limited and companies here would become more competitive if they gained more experience. The desalination of brackish groundwater in the Canary Islands costs approximately 50 pesetas/m3 (which is a cost of only 20 pesetas/m3 above the present price). Osmosis technology has been perfectly tested out.
One last thought on desalination is that, given that the investment is relatively small, it would surely be profitable to build the installations and use them only in the case of drought.

Some final thoughts

Up to this point I have tried to be objective (if this is possible). In this final section, however, I'd like to add a few final reflections as a result of what has been said about this subject.
There is a kind of prejudice against water conveyance schemes, especially in conservationist circles. This prejudice is, in part, justifiable. Many conveyance schemes have been seriously mistaken (just take the particular example of the Aral Sea). In this case, however, I don't believe that the circumstances justify so much prejudice. The volume that would be taken is just a small fraction of the water flowing in the Rhone, it won't be put into rivers here but will go directly to the treatment plant and the water taken does not have very much salt in it.
The risk of radioactive contamination has been talked about. The truth of the matter is, however, that radioactivity is easy to measure and therefore to control. Under natural conditions, radioactivity in the Rhone is lower than in the Llobregat and, if there were any accident at any French nuclear power station, it would be very easy to close the tap at the source of water supply. In fact, from the point of view of water quality, one of the uncertainties that has to be resolved is the concentrations of micropollutants. If these are high, the project would surely have to be abandoned because desalination technology would probably be required to eliminate these contaminants. We imagine them to not be very high (of course, this would have to be verified).
It has also been said that the Rhone conveyance scheme is like building the Pyramids. I don't believe this. It is a very large construction project but it is coherent with the proposal. Like many public works, it is large scale and has an enormous budget but it is no more monumental than 150 kms. of motorway or a large port. In fact, if it is compared with other public investments, it doesn't appear disproportionate at all. The problem comes when it is compared to expenditure and the cost of education, universities, natural parks, technological innovation, social welfare, etc. But this is what always happens: the politicians like more investment than operating costs.
To sum up, the Rhone conveyance scheme is a good solution. The problems involve the cost and the fact that it resolves the Barcelona water supply too easily. What I mean is that if it's done, no one will ever remember the other problems. In relation to the cost, I think that this is excessive and that the policies of integrated management outlined in the previous section could resolve the problems of supply to the Barcelona area at a much lower cost. The question is whether there is the political will to do this.
Water policies have traditionally been the result of long discourses on equity. The truth of the matter is, however, that no one has ever really known what equity means. It certainly doesn't mean economic equity (that the beneficiaries pay) in order for subsidies to be sought after and usually acquired. Neither does it mean social equity because the beneficiaries are always just a handful and not those who have the least. Political equity would require that those who are affected are the ones that make the decisions, which is something that would never occur because the «national» interest are always over and above this. In short, it is only the «ecologists» who are concerned about inter-generational equity. To sum up, despite the fact that water policies based on long discourses bother me, I wouldn't know how to propose any alternative.
Having got to this point, I imagine that the reader must now be totally confused. If not, it means that you haven't been paying enough attention. I personally am confused. It stands to reason that the decision is not strictly rational, that ideological elements come into play and that everyone thus has a personal opinion. It would be unfair to those who have come this far, however, if I didn't share with them my personal evaluation that it would be better for the conveyance scheme to be not undertaken for the time being. Ironically, what tips the balance in my opinion are aspects that I haven't gone over much. I believe that integrated management would favour the technological development of green industry in Catalonia at a point in time when the future is ripe (for once, we wouldn't be jumping on the bandwagon of the rest of the Western world). I believe that opting for integrated management would enable the water systems in Catalonia to be cleaned up.
Up to this point I've said that integrated management and conveyance schemes are not exclusive options. In essence they're not. I doubt however whether the government would really opt for integrated management if the conveyance scheme went through. This means finding and getting the involvement of municipal councils, the inhabitants, public utility companies, the universities, ecological organizations, etc. Up until now, it hasn't been done. If the water conveyance scheme is built, this will be less urgent and it won't get done. For example, the universities and research centres in the ATLL area generate 1.1% of the world's science and technology related to water (measured in terms of the number of publications in recognized scientific journals). None of them has made any of the multiple studies carried out on the subject of the conveyance scheme.
It is from this perspective of great confidence in the capacity of people here that I think that it is better, for the time being, to not go ahead with the water conveyance scheme. If the policies carried out prove to be insufficient, then it will go ahead. If they are, however, which means to say that if they are sufficient, then we'll have saved 150,000 million pesetas or, as it will be then, around 1,000 million euros
 

The environmental taxation system and the new water culture

Enric Tello
Professor of Economic History, University of Barcelona

The environmental non-sustainability of particular policies could lead to socio-ecological conflicts, as shown by the water war (fiscal disobedience of different users in the Barcelona area). This war provides a firm basis for reflection on the taxes arising from water resources and the need for a change in this regard. A change which should take place in the line of the green-tax revolution and the strengthening of democracy.
 

The new law passed by the Parliament of Catalonia has put an end to the «the water war» in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. For eight years, an increasing number of families, which finally reached eighty thousand -that is, two hundred and fifty thousand people directly involved- refused to pay a series of taxes on their water bill, which they considered to be outrageous. In some towns, the number of customers who joined the campaign was 20% of the total, and in all the municipalities in the metropolitan area the average was 6% in 1997. In the city of Barcelona fewer than 2% took part, but in some towns percentages were high, for instance, Sant Feliu (23%), Sant Boi de Llobregat (20%), Badalona (17%), Santa Coloma de Gramanet (15%) and Gavà (12%).1
This protest was labelled irresponsible and inconsiderate of environmental values and has become just another one of many factors that are favouring an advance towards a new more sustainable water culture. Now is a good time to look back and recapitulate. How did a protest of such importance come about? Why did it take so long to solve the problem? What lessons can be learnt for the future development of the new environmental taxation system? Is it worth analysing it as an example of the complex ways, frequently unexpected and transgressive, by which environmental unsustainability becomes a socio-ecological conflict.

Why did the water war break out?

Graph and table no. 1 show the trigger: between 1990 and 1992 domestic water bills for the Barcelona metropolitan area increased by nearly 20% in real terms, not counting inflation. That meant that the bill was  close on  40% more expensive for the most habitual consumption:
But a trigger is not a cause. The socio-ecological origin of the problem can be found if we look into the reasons for that sudden increase. Those who studied their bill suspiciously soon discovered that it wasn't the company–AGBAR in most cases– whose tariff had increased, but the taxes levied by the administrations with competencies in the water cycle: the Autonomous Government of Catalonia, the Barcelona Metropolitan Municipal Authority, and the Barcelona City Council. It was neither an incomprehensible fit of tax collecting, nor had they got together to put up the price of water. If we look at their reasons, we come up against a case of exceeding environmental limits.
With the exception of the environmental waste management tax (TAMGREM), and possibly the sewerage tax charged by the Barcelona City Council3, most of the new water rate came from the transfer to the domestic consumers of the metropolitan area the new costs of catchment, pumping, channelling, potabilisation and treatment caused by a policy of constantly increasing supply, and by the need to «compensate» for the deterioration in quantity and quality of the water resources available in Catalonia's inland river basins.4 Between 1992 and 1998, the number of water treatment plants has gone from 90 and 53 under construction to 210 in operation, 48 underway and 39 planned, and 297 large treatment plants that will serve 2.8 million people in 2001. This has meant a sustained expense of some forty thousand million pesetas a year, half of which come from taxes or water treatment levies paid by consumers and the rest from subsidies or credits.5 This increase in economic costs, typical of a «mature water economy», is the result of a forced and inevitable internalization of ecological costs once the recommended environmental limits have been surpassed.

The dark side of the water war

In the Catalan inland basins half the water they contain is extracted on average for human use, and in the case of the Ebro, 59%. This far exceeds the  8% figure for the rest of world, 15% for Europe and even the l 41% average for all the river basins in Spain.6 Ramon Margalef recommends as a ceiling a «rule of a third»: a third for human use, another for the evapotranspiration of the vegetation that maintains primary continental production, and a third to return to the sea in rivers, and in surface and underground runoff.7 When the Autonomous Government of Catalonia, the Metropolitan Authority for Hydraulic Services and Waste Treatment, and a few Town Councils began to add taxes to the water bills like so many carriages on a train, they were only doing the usual thing: sharing costs. If the spreading of the population towards the outskirts if the city and the building of new industrial and housing estates, golf courses, second homes, hotels and parks increased the demand for water, the Authorities reacted by passing the cost on to the consumers they already had (instead of spreading the marginal cost over new demands, as recommended in the new guidelines of sustainable economy).
The European Environmental Agency defines four stages in the conception and application of environmental taxes. In the nineteen seventies, taxes mostly covered costs  and simply aimed at spreading the costs of  an environmental service between consumers. The need to legitimate new indirect taxes, in the face of the desperate need for income of public authorities in a state of anguish over the national debt, led to the definition of earmarked taxes (which can only be allocated to a specific end). In the eighties a new generation of incentive taxes was conceived, the main purpose of which was not to increase collection but rather to change the behaviour of companies and consumers by penalising those who caused most harm to the environment. In the nineties, a green tax reform is underway, which does not simply add on special taxes to have «extra» funds to devote to improving the environment, but brings about a decisive change in criteria and tax payers already in existence so that the encouraging or dissuasive effects, and the redistribution of the whole expense, points economic activity towards greater sustainability.
The various Catalan public administrations have so far been incapable of getting past the first stage, at least with regard to environmental taxation and the regulation of domestic water rates. Without rethinking the  fragmented management of the water cycle, without informing the citizens of the emergent environmental problems, or previously negotiating the possible alternatives with the social actors, they transferred the growing economic costs to the water bill. They failed to realise that their uncoordinated actions were the last straw, distorting an old «moral economy» which considers water a basic commodity which must be available to everyone. The result was «the water war», which showed that amongst the public that ancestral culture of the spring was still in force, a spring that even today still provides water for free in the town square.
After the sharp increases of 1991 and 1992 the conflict came to a standstill. The trickle of fiscal dissidents was growing daily. Their water supply could not be cut off as they were merely objecting to paying taxes they considered outrageous, or being charged in an improper fashion. Every quarter, they paid the water rate plus VAT into a current account opened by residents' associations, which soon contained thousands of millions of pesetas. Although the tax payers might accept it voluntarily as a tax-gathering method, they were not legally obliged to pay their taxes through a bill derived from a private contract between the consumer and the water board. The protest was outside the current framework of administration and rates. A solution could only be found within another.

From deadlock to negotiation

That other framework did not appear until seven years later when, after several failed attempts, negotiations between the Autonomous Government of Catalonia and the Confederation of Residents' Associations (CONFAVC) used three principles proclaimed in the new European Directive of 1997 as a starting point, and incorporated them into the draft version of the new law. These principles were: to integrate the management of the whole water cycle, that prices reflect all costs (full cost pricing), and that basic consumption be available to everyone.10 The integration of water cycle management into an Agency that co-ordinated with local bodies put an end to the piling of extra taxes on the final consumer's bill, something which was incomprehensible for any normal citizen. The new bill will feature a single levy to be paid to the Water Agency to finance all public infrastructure for water supply and treatment, as well as the regulated tariff paid to the company responsible for water potabilisation and distribution (municipal, or private such as AGBAR). The sum of the water rate and levy must include all water cycle management costs which it is decided, by democratic vote, shall be transferred to the domestic consumer.11 Other taxes which have no relation to water, such as municipal waste treatment (TAMGREM), must be processed separately.
The residents' associations set up the protest to ensure that water was reasonably priced. It is no coincidence that the outburst took place in one of the Spanish cities where water was most expensive, and whose citizens had not been subjected to any real restrictions due to drought.12 As usual, the expensiveness or cheapness depends on what we compare it to and on who does the campaign. A family consuming 144 m3 a year with one incoming wage equal to the average wage before tax in Catalonia, would spend 0.96% of its income on water in 1990 and 1% in 1999. A pensioner living alone, consuming 48 m3 and living on an average pension would spend 1.56% of his income on water in 1990 and 1.31% in 1999.13 At first sight these percentages seem tiny. However, they are the norm all over and variations hide slight differences.14 In absolute terms they mean paying thirty or forty thousand a year for the water consumption of an average family.
Is that a lot or a little? It depends on how much money you have, of course. But also on attitudes. The «moral economy « of water is interpreted in different ways depending on each person's situation and culture. In a survey of family budgets carried out in 1991, when the big increase took place, the average annual expense per consumer unit in the province of Barcelona was a million pesetas. Supposing that averages mean anything in these matters, the proportion allocated to «personal transport vehicles» was 116,632 pesetas a year: three times the water bill and eight times the amount allocated to public transport (13,979 pesetas). However, expenses for education were comparable to those for water (29,796 pesetas), whereas buying «books, newspapers and magazines» was allocated the same as public transport (13,411 pesetas a year).15 Every September, buying school books, uniforms and so on causes controversy. It does not appear particularly sensible to scorn a water expense that represents the same, or a larger, proportion of the family budget.16
Graph 1 shows that in the six or seven years of deadlock, and while the voices of protest against the «outrage» of the water bill could be heard from time to time in the streets of Barcelona, the residents' associations were silently approaching their objective: a return to the 1990 price plus the RPI accumulated. In the face of all the fuss, the authorities voted yearly increases of the water rates and taxes below the RPI. This undoubtedly helped to bring the opposing camps closer together. Nevertheless, agreement was only reached once both sides had begun to consider an aspect which was decisive for the new culture of sustainability: that water does not have one price, it has many. In fact it has as many process as it has types of consumption. Therein lies the key to the future.
The ever closer relationship between residents' associations and ecologist groups on several common platforms facilitated the inclusion in their demands of an essential point: reasonable prices should be for basic consumption of less than a hundred litres per person per day. Above this limit, they should increase more than proportionally, to encourage efficiency in intermediate uses and penalise excessive consumption. The progressive increase in price, depending on consumption, which relates the social equity of access to water with the environmental sustainability of resources, took centre stage in the discussion. This coincided with the arrival of the new European Directive which, along with full cost pricing, also declared that basic consumption should be reasonably priced. The two things would be contradictory unless the water rates  really were progressive.

The key to the future: from regressive prices to the progressive increase

Graph 2 shows that up to now the situation has been the complete opposite. Despite the existence of three consumption blocks with increasing rates, in fact each cubic metre of water is most expensive for the person who consumes the most.
This is the consequence of a standing charge for supply which in most cases amounts to almost half the water supply amount, and whose tax gathering method makes the overall quarterly bill even more regressive.
Such regression discourages saving. Any investment in more efficient systems (for instance a washing machine that uses less water, a system that re-uses water from the bath or the washing machine in the WC, rain butts, etc.) offers very slow returns. These devices can save a considerable amount of water throughout their working life, but very little in the way of money. The lower the consumption, the less worthwhile it is  investing in new appliances or water re-use systems.
The existence of such a high standing charge regardless of consumption has no serious economic justification,  and does the exact opposite of encouraging saving which is precisely what the new legislation on taxation and tariffs should do. It is usually justified by the existence of fixed costs for supply and treatment. If the argument refers to the need to recoup them on the revenue side, one must remember that fixed costs exist in any economic activity. The only difference between the water board and any other company that does not enjoy a «natural» monopoly is that it can always be sure to cover all its costs, fixed or variable, by interchanging the corresponding documentation with the authority the fixes the tariffs (the Barcelona Metropolitan Municipal Authority and the Prices Commission of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia).
The argument is more plausible from the point of view of equity between consumers: metres which register very low consumption (empty houses, second or third homes) should make a larger contribution than the bill for consumption for the maintenance of infrastructure of a specific size, regardless of whether consumption is regular or seasonal. But this problem can be solved by including the service charge in the first few cubic metres billed, up to an amount which is less than a person's basic consumption. Then the charge gives you the right to consume that amount, and only those who consume less will have to pay.
The very idea of a charge related to the number of taps in a household responds to the now obsolete concept of the mere repercussion of costs, and ignores two variables which are fundamental to the new sustainable management of the demand: the number of people who live in a household, and the fact that each of the appliances connected to those consumption points can provide their service using large or small amounts of water depending on their efficiency. With the tariff structure in force in 1990, a person living alone in Barcelona and consuming an average of 133.3 litres per day, paid 74% more for his water than four people consuming the same and sharing a home and metre. In 1999, the difference is less because over the decade the increases in charges have been less than the price of each consumption block (and the  tax structure was also modified). However, people living alone still paid 56% more for their water than a family of four.

Water cultures and reading the bill

A tariff structure which encourages saving should be related to the number of people consuming, and who  can make decisions (for example, whether to buy energy-saving appliances), instead of the number of taps (which changes anyway when kitchens and bathrooms are decorated). In fact, the number of occupants per household has been one of the factors in the «water war» that has caused the most fuss. Funnily enough, however, hardly anybody came to the defence of households with few members and of people living alone, now that their  number is on the increase (unmarried men and women, pensioners, one-parent families). The debate centred on large families who felt they were being discriminated against because they were in the second and third consumption block, more expensive, when they could easily consume the same amount of water or less per capita than a person living alone.
At first sight, it appears contradictory that regression in taxation and tariffs could be detrimental to people living alone and upset large families. However, it is not if we consider that both lose out for different reasons. If we divide the quarterly amount by the number of cubic metres consumed, it is clear that every litre of water is more expensive for a person living alone and cheaper -despite being in the second or third block- for large families. Nevertheless, it is also true that the bill is also larger than it would have been for the large family if only one block had been counted -as established by Sentence 14/1997 of the High Court of Catalonia-, or if the limits of each block were established taking into account the number of real consumers per household.
In short, we had a tariff system which was objectively regressive which focused on the cheapening of resources and at the same time managed to make everyone feel they were losing out. Following the water pact, and the new law passed by the Catalan Parliament, it seems the time had come to establish another which would guarantee greater consensus promoting equity between basic consumers, efficiency with average consumers and overall sufficiency. But, it would be difficult to achieve all this at once if the new levy and the tariff were not related in an agile and economical way with the number of people who consume water on the same metre.
In its reasoning, the new law clearly states that «with regard to domestic consumers, a basic level of  consumption is protected bearing in mind the number of consumers of water in a household». However, when specifying the taxable base, article 40 establishes an invoicing minimum of  6 m3 per consumer per month without clarifying whether it is a realistic fix charge or not. For domestic use article 42 only establishes two rates of consumption, below or above 10 m3 a month. Finally, only if the total number of people living in the same household is more than four does the limit between blocks increase by 2.5 m3 a month for each additional member. This means that the number of consumers on the same metre will only be taken into account in the case of households with more than four members, which constitute 15% of households and 27% of the population at the outside.
If, in addition to being applied to the Water Agency levy, these criteria are interpreted restrictively when establishing the new domestic water tariff, a large proportion of the socio-environmental problems of the previous situation would still remain: lack of incentive to save and the penalising of those who live alone. If the project of transferring water from the Rhone as envisaged in the proposal of the Aigües Ter-Llobregat (ATLL) company, the 200,000 million pesetas the work would cost would be reflected, once again, in the charges to consumers in the metropolitan area who already had water. In order to supply future «latent» demand, which the transfer would awaken - and which go from an increase in allocation per capita, or the substitution of local resources considered of inferior quality, to an improvement in the minimum volume of flow of rivers -, domestic water bills would suddenly go up again by thirty to sixty pesetas/m3. To  fix this, ATLL intends to include the cost in a standing charge, regardless of how much water is really consumed. This could provide a climate for the outbreak of another «water war». Let us hope the lessons learnt from the last one will enable us to avoid another conflict, and help to pave the way towards a new water culture.

Towards a new policy: the management of demand

The establishment of really progressive tariffs and levies based on the number of consumers, is the first essential step towards changing the basic philosophy which has so far ruled the relationship between public and private suppliers of water, on the one hand, and the domestic consumers on the other: the question is to buy or sell efficient service, not cubic metres. For those people who are not familiar with the new economic philosophy of water or electricity demand management, and with the advances already made in its application in several countries, this proposal may appear to be inducing the supplying companies to commit suicide. If their business is to sell water, how can we ask them to invoice for it in a way that encourages people to save?
Indeed, if the supplying companies stick to the idea that their business consists of invoicing for water they will be hostile to any proposal that helps their clients to save water. But this is a mistake. A water supplying company is not like a bottling plant. It does not sell water for consumption. It supplies water for a wide and varied range of services to homes and businesses. Its clients do not actually ask for cubic metres of water. What they want is to be able to do the following: wash, have a shower, wash their clothes and the dishes, mop the floor, cook, water the plants, flush the toilet, etc. The way in which the various tariffs have been calculated up to now, according to the number of domestic appliances that consume water, emphasises the consumer's final demand on the water supplied. However, all these appliances can do their jobs whilst using more or less water (and of different qualities), which contradicts totally the idea of turning the sum into a set charge.
The «water war» in the Barcelona metropolitan area was itself conclusive proof of the way  in which the bill is usually read: large families have been roused by the increase in their bills, whilst people living alone have not yet made a public complaint about the fact that they pay more per cubic metre for their water. It is clear that most of society equates the total cost of the water bill with the household tasks they use the water for, and not with the amount of water they consume whilst doing them. When the supplying companies guarantee their income with set charges, which significantly reduce the impact of total water consumption on the customers' bills, they demonstrate just as clearly that their aim is to cover expenses and the cost of investment and make a profit. Nor is the water that runs through the metre their main concern.
The management of demand starts from this basic fact: neither the customers nor the supplying company focus on the amount of water. Their relationship an exchange of services for bills. Water intervenes in this exchange merely as a means of providing a service. The amount of water may be very large if the systems using it are inefficient, and it can be reduced with more efficient appliances and re-use. The invoicing method in use up to now favoured waste, and has penalised saving. Starting from the premises that customers want service and the companies want to make a profit on their investments, the rules of the game can be altered with tariff system that penalises waste and encourages saving and re-use. It is simply a question of changing the criteria of the pact between the authorities, the company and the customers, guaranteeing the customers that the bill will not go up in real terms for the same service, and guaranteeing investors that invoicing will cover the cost of investments made (following a democratic decision) and return a suitable profit (under the democratic supervision of the regulating body).
Who gains from this change? Everyone gains a little, particularly the environment. In the same way that policies of electric demand management obtain «negawatts» (that is, electric power saved thanks to an improvement in overall efficiency) which can be used to cover other services, the management of water demand can create cubic nega-hectometres available for other uses. If there are increasing demands to be supplied, this is one of the principal gains of the operation which benefits the supplying companies. They gain because the cost of obtaining these cubic nega-hectometres of water will become gradually lower than the cost of bringing it from increasingly distant locations in transfers and pumping systems which are ever more mammoth and costly. Investing in efficiency may be cheaper and more profitable, helping to rationalise the finances of the supplying companies and reducing the consumers' water bill in real terms. Obviously, as long as the regulating framework takes into account all the costs, chooses the efficient option, and discourages the irrational exploitation of resources.
For the environment, all this involves avoiding pressure from the new demands on natural systems. If the amount of water saved is greater than the new demands, this can also help to reduce the absolute pressure on the natural resource, benefiting the ecosystemic functions of the water. In short, demand management policy tends to contain first, and then reduce the collection, channelling and potabilisation of water for supply. It offers the supplying companies new opportunities for reasonable gain. Certainly, in the middle or long term it limits its field of future expansion. However, it only limits their traditional activities. Saving and re-use open up new areas of investment they can enter by diversifying their activity and giving it a new direction towards the efficient supply of services which need water. Both options require investment in  infrastructure, but in completely different ways: mammoth tasks in offer policy, and broadcasting of small-scale systems in alternative policy directed at planning from demand.21 Demand management poses a business and social challenge which is an invitation to go from merely selling water to offering the efficient services that require it.
For this to be socially acceptable, demand management must guarantee that the consumers' bills will not be higher. But if consumption in cubic metres tends to drop, the water rates can increase. Both can take place at once: the amount on the bill is the result of multiplying the price by the amount of water consumed. If consumption drops, the price can go up without increasing the amount on the bill. All this implies, obviously, a three-way pact between the consumers' and residents' associations, the supplying companies, and the  public administrations with authority to regulate such matters. This pact cannot be only a circumstantial agreement. It must be global process of continual democratic agreement.

Catalonia, to take an obvious example

In the counties around Barcelona the need to change direction towards this new demand management policy is on the agenda. Water supply and consumption are right in the middle of a crossroads. As can be seen in table 4, if we add the inertia of water supply planning based only on supply  to the current tendency towards dispersal in cities - where the growing population gravitates towards the outskirts, becoming socially segregated and distanced from activities and services - future demand will far exceed the resources available. The passive acceptance of this situation forms the basis of current Aigües-Ter-Llobregat (ATLL) projections, and their option biased towards the transfer of 375 hm3 a year from the river Rhone.
Tendencies do not mark the end of the line, however. The socio-environmental sustainability of Catalonia depends precisely on the ability to democratically contravene these segregative and unsustainable tendencies in the metropolitan area.22 If instead of encouraging an increase in the consumption of land and resources in favour of an urban model of poorer quality and more socially unjust, the democratic agreement between the public administrations and the public acts decisively to reorientate these tendencies. It is perfectly viable to guarantee a water supply of quality for all uses, whilst reducing unsustainable pressure  on our rivers and aquifers. It would be sufficient if an active policy of demand management and rationalisation favoured a convergence of consumption and allocations in the suburbs and those of Barcelona, to eliminate the «need» to bring water from outside (even accepting a highly improbable increase in population, and the advance of a dispersal that is completely undesirable: see table 4).
Environmental taxation and progressive charges are important instruments of this new hydrological policy of demand management, which should seek to bring us closer to the value-guide of 250 litres per persona per day - 150 for domestic use and  100 more for industrial, commercial and service activities - suggested by Narcís Prat in his alternative proposal for hydrological planning in the inland basins of Catalonia.23 Combined with an intelligent recovery of local aquifers, the fomenting of the re-use of treated water - in 1998 555 hm3 were treated, and once the Water Treatment Programme is complete, there will be 700 hm3 a year24 -, the specific contribution of  desalination and intersectoral transfers with agricultural uses, the new water management can also guarantee the recovery of the minimum biological flow of rivers and their biological quality.

Industrial ecoefficiency

In the inland basins of Catalunya urban consumption represents approximately 45% of the total, and 69% in the area served upstream by the Aigües-Ter-Llobregat system. Industrial uses count for 21%, and 31% of the ATLL network.25 Unlike the domestic tariffs in force until the new water law, the treatment levy applied to industrial consumption was beginning to encourage saving the resource, and reducing dumping, when the obligation to declare the pollutant load dumped was introduced in 1992. This has enabled the type of  individualised duty to be applied to each company, depending on the concentration of pollution parameters: suspended matter, oxidable matter, soluble salts and inhibitor matter, to which the nutrients Nitrogen and Phosphorous are added later, and increases in temperature of over 3 ºC. This structure of industrial treatment levy has generated a two-fold response, with the common aim of minimising payment of the tax: to reduce water consumption and/or reduce the pollutant load dumped.
In fact, this is what has happened in the last few years. Despite that fact that between 1994 and 1998 individualised dumping declarations have increased by 58%, the overall amount gathered in taxes through the industrial water treatment rate increment has tended to be lower as a result of the  improvements introduced by the companies, in both their processes and treatment and re-use systems. This has enabled the Water Treatment Agency to increase the coverage of the tax by introducing new parameters to reinforce the tendency towards environmental improvement and stabilise the contribution of industrial companies to public expenditure in water treatment. These results appear to indicate the prior existence of a technological capacity to improve efficiency in the industrial use of water in many sectors. Instead of being an obstacle to competitiveness, the application of a tax which encourages saving along with the offer of subsidies for the reduction of the pollutant load has encouraged the spread of technical improvements available on the market.
The studies carried out by  Aigües Ter-Llobregat (ATLL), the principal advocate of the Rhone transfer project recognise the general trend towards the reduction of industrial water consumption.28 Likewise, the Hydrological Plan for the Inland Basins approved in 1998 by the National Water Board still maintains a forecast for growth in industrial supply from the current 305 to 414 hm3/year for 2012. ATLL merely forecasts almost complete stability for 2025 - from 156 now to 159 hm3/year - which it considers compatible with the growth of the industry itself. According to another study by the Catalan Institute for Energy  (ICAEN), based on 415 audits of the use of water between 1992 and 1997, the different industrial sectors could still reduce their overall water demand by 30 or 40% with profitable investment (which according to Narcís Prat would be the equivalent of a saving of 46 hm3/year).29
A study by Cristina de Gispert has assessed the responses to the application of the water treatment levy of a sample of industries connected to Aigües Ter-Llobregat network in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, which paid an average of 188 pts./m3 for water in 1997 (the price actually varied from a minimum of  63 to a maximum of 530 pts./m3). The results show a more sensitive response from the textile and chemical sectors, and a lesser ability to respond in industries such as food or paper where water becomes an input which is incorporated in the product. This confirms that the application of a taxation and charging policy that encourages saving can obtain responses in the short term that improve the hydrological ecoefficiency in many industrial sectors.30 The same author observes that this incentive would be reinforced if the industrial treatment levy were to become even more progressive, by applying increasing tax rates depending on the level of pollutant emissions. She also points out the danger of responses merely changing from being connected to the ATLL network to obtaining water directly from wells, which is usually cheaper. Within the ATLL territory companies which obtain water exclusively from this company constitute 73% of the total. However, they only represent 33% of flows used by industry because those that consume the most have their own supply systems.
This promising start of policies which encourage hydrological efficiency in industry contrasts with the merely inertial approach of increasing supply for other uses. The spread of technologies for saving or re-using energy for the domestic sector comes up against more barriers than in the industrial sector right from the beginning. But there is no real reason why the tools of environmental taxation and  the new water culture should not be applied in urban environments too. However, it is in the agricultural sector where the serious «hydroschizophrenia» we suffer here in Catalonia is most evident.

Irrigation water and the two Catalonias

Hydrological planning divides Catalonia into two separate areas which would appear to be totally unrelated: the inland basins, which overlook the Mediterranean, and the interior regions that drain into the Ebro. In the hydraulic domain of the inland basins, lie some of the most fertile, profitable and dynamic agricultural areas. However, irrigation only accounts for 29% of water consumption. In the area of Catalonia which is  hydrologically integrated in the Ebro basins, irrigation represents 86% of all water consumed. This contrast in the uses of water is an exact replica of the distribution of the population and economic activities. Most inhabitants, industries and services are to be found along the coast. In the interior, agriculture and stockbreeding face serious socio-economic difficulties, in a process of ageing and relative recession.
As well as reflecting Catalonia's territorial contrasts, the splitting of water management into two parts is another factor that maintains and reinforces our «hydroschizophrenia». This hydric split personality generates a lot of irrational behaviour. Here is an example: despite the lack of markets for the agricultural surplaces which accumulate throughout the European Union, and  forecasts of  Agenda 2000, with water from the Rialb reservoir, the aim is only to increase the irrigated area to 70,000 new hectares of olive groves and herbaceous crops, without asking first whether it would not be possible to share uses which would be more sensible and profitable for everyone.
Whilst protocols are being signed to subsidise two thirds of the cost of the Segarra-Garrigues canal with public funding, article 37 of the new water law exempts the agricultural use of water from tax payment «unless it causes pollution of a special kind, by nature or quantity by either nature or quantity, from fertilisers, pesticides or organic material, verified by the inspection service of the competent Administration.» Article 44 applies coefficient zero to the type of tax for agricultural uses which are not exempt by virtue of the above criterion (the same as the use of water for hydroelectric production, industrial cooling in closed and mixed circuits and aquiculture). All this has little to do with the aims of EU Directives, with regard to both hydrological planning and agricultural policy. It means the wall that separates water economics as applied to agriculture from the other sectors still stands.
Sooner or later, many citizens and tax payers will inevitably ask themselves what is the point of subsidising the water supply to water subsidised crops, and very often surplus to requirements. The water rates paid for  irrigation water, and the real profitability of each cubic metre used in agriculture, vary enormously depending on the type of crop, the agricultural areas and exploitation. However, the overall analysis of the water accounts for the whole of Spain for 1991, presented to the OECD, showed that irrigation farmers paid an average of seven pesetas/m3 while the average cost of transporting the water was close to 18 pts./m3. This means that the agricultural sector barely paid 40% of the water it consumed, and thus receives an annual subsidy  of  330,000 million pesetas.31
Behind these huge subsidies lies a series of inefficiencies. The average cost of water in the irrigated lands of Valencia is around 19 pts./m3, and is still largely billed by unit of area.32 In the irrigated lands of la Mancha the gross profit margin obtained from irrigation is 48 ptas./m3 for wheat and barley, 23 ptas./m3 for sunflowers and  20 for corn (counting subsidies as income, and subtracting only the direct costs of machinery, input and non-family labour).33 In the irrigated lands in the Ebro valley the same crops obtain a net margin of between 7 and 10 ptas./m3 (deducting depreciations, social burdens, financial expenses, etc.). If we subtract the cost of family labour and the rent for the land from the net margin, the real profits barely amount to two pesetas per cubic metre. If we discount the subsidy for the product, many of these herbaceous crops are watered at a loss. Pedro Arrojo and Estrella Bernal estimate that if the irrigated lands of Aragon analysed had had to pay 16 ptas. per m3 of water, and there were no subsidies for the crops, 45% would be in the red and 90% would yield insufficient profit to keep up the activity .
Contrasts between areas and irrigation structures are considerable and over-generalising can be very unfair. Joan Corominas estimates that the productivity for the whole of Andalucia is less than 65 ptas./m3 in a quarter of the irrigated area, but 45% of the value of all agricultural production comes from the most profitable 10% of the irrigated area (generally greenhouse fruit and vegetables or hydroponic crops) where the water yield exceeds 250 ptas./m3. They are also the most efficient irrigated lands, and those that generate the most jobs per hectare farmed, contributing to keeping territorial and social balance.34
All these examples have a common denominator: the efficiency of the water used in agriculture varies considerably, but is too low in too large a part of the irrigated areas. The large irrigated areas of the western counties of Catalonia are no exception. A detailed study of the exploitation of water in the areas irrigated from the Urgell Canal carried out in the municipality of Arbeca shows that average efficiency does not exceed 30%, the majority is lost through percolation and 23% to reservoirs. By contrast, the greater adapting of the irrigation system to the type of soil enables the same crops in Linyola to make use of  86% of the water, losing only 6% through percolation.35
The improvement of irrigation systems and the environmental modernisation of  irrigated land mask a great potential of water which could be made available for other uses. As José Manuel Naredo points out, the low efficiency of the agricultural use of water is related to the institutional and economic barriers which isolate the water allocations of this sector in a closed compartment:
«The main institutional hurdle to be removed is the one which locks the availability of water in three closed compartments: water for irrigation, water for urban and industrial supply and bottled or «table» water. The difference in prices at which the water consumed is invoiced in each of these separate worlds is so great, that it would appear to indicate that that they do not come from the same water cycle or that they are separated by differences in quality which are far more general and marked than can actually be observed. In the first of these worlds it is not unusual to pay around a peseta per cubic metre, whilst in the second it costs about a hundred pesetas per cubic metre and in the third, many thousands of pesetas per cubic metre. The cost of water multiplies by over a hundred when you go from one level to the next. These disparities between prices or rates extend within each of the consumer groups, with no economic reason to justify them».36
The Congress «Towards a new water culture», held in Saragossa in September 1998, cam  up with the following recommendation: «Let's improve irrigation, not increase it». The Rialb reservoir and the Segarra-Garrigues canal should provide the opportunity to propose the same in Catalonia. From the point of view of the new water culture, the Rialb dam is a big mistake. Let's hope it's the last. The problem with farming and the rural world lies, and is most severe? in the unirrigated land. However, the solution is not to carry on subsidising water in a manner which is economically distortive and environmentally unsustainable.
The solution is get to the root of the problem to guarantee the viability of Catalan agriculture, and the rural world as a whole. Due to its role in local supply and the safety aspects of food production, and because of the tasks it performs in caring for the land, farmers have a right to claim fair compensation from society. With in the framework of the new pact for sustainability between the country and the city, new rules must be made for a direct subsidy that pays for the vital functions of territorial and socio-environmental balance the rural world carries out. But it is the activities that should be subsidised. Not water, or fuel or agrochemicals.
We must start to open hatches  in the wall that separates water from agriculture and other sectors. Little by little farmers will have to consent to paying more for water and using it more efficiently. The economic imbalance this brings about in their exploitation accounts should be compensated at the same time by direct subsidies for other items. When all is said and done, paying more for water, and depending less on it, will be a guarantee for farmers. If the rural world and the urban world had to end up fighting bitterly over water as scarce resource in a market with no public intermediaries or democratic criteria, the disparate prices we have now are good indication of which camp it would end up in.37
The example of the water bank of California shows that sensible regulation of economic water transfers between economic sectors can be a good alternative, far cheaper and environmentally healthy, to the transfer of cement between areas and basins. This Californian «water market», publicly regulated, authorises farmers to sell a part of their irrigation rights with no fear of losing them. As urban buyers will always pay more for it, with what they make from these sales, farmers can make up for the loss of harvests and still finance investment in more efficient irrigation systems which allow the irrigation of the same area with less water. Everyone gains something with this, the environment more than anyone.38 It is not a question of transferring large amounts, changing their economic destination. The main contribution made by intersectorial transfers from a «water bank» like the Californian one is to offer a guarantee of supply to combat the isolated but repetitive droughts suffered.39
Neither is it a question of replacing the planning of a common commodity like water with a «free market» with no restrictions. It is a question of planning differently, with other instruments, understanding that uses can be shared better and more efficiently. Without disputing that the preferred use of the water from Rialb must be agricultural, this approach could be applied in the exploitation start-up process of what must be the last great dam in Catalonia. Depending on the type of crop and the irrigation methods used on the Urgell Plain, in la Noguera, el Segrià, la Segarra and les Garrigues, water consumption will be very different. The possibility of sharing it will too. From the point of view of new sustainable culture, guaranteeing the water supply is not a function which is independent of regulating agricultural activities or planning land use in general. It dies not seem very sensible to  go to the Rhone for a « strategic reserve» of water when the largest reservoir in the whole of  Catalonia is about to be opened. Before we get embroiled in signing an international pact between two states to transfer water as though it's going out of fashion, we, as a country, should cure our own «hydroschizophrenia».40

Environmental democracy and toilet cisterns

As the ecological economist José Manuel Naredo wrote, to avoid new «water wars» we need a new economic and environmental approach that stems from the acceptance that the water cycle is a limited resource that we share with Nature:
The  «water problem» in Catalonia  will not be solved by merely technical solutions, but rather demands, on the one hand, consumers' associations that care actively and responsibly for water management and, on the other, a solvent and generally accepted foundation on which to base negotiation and decision making within a suitable framework. The shortcomings observed in these requirements have led us down a slippery slope to conflict and social unrest, making «the water problem» even worse for  politicians with authority in the matter: with no water markets or suitable forums of negotiation, with no consumers' associations responsible for management with which to agree the bases of a necessary readjustment between demands and  availability, and without a generally accepted framework of information (physical and monetary) to work in, the «water problem» is about to become the «water war».41
In 1991 a real social pact was signed in California between the principal water supplying companies and  environmentalist groups to apply the «best management practices» (BMP). The signing of the memorandum gave way to the creation of an urban council for saving water (California Urban Water Conservation Council) which monitors the application of «best practices» in local agencies and supplying companies. The Council is based on equal representation - half are agency members, the other environmentalist groups - and their decisions must be taken by consensus. It directs its reports to the State regulating body (California Water Resources Control Board), and has its own budget. One of its objectives is to reduce domestic consumption to 169 litres per person per day, from the current 245, and one of its initial actions was to stimulate the substitution of a million and a half toilet cisterns for water saving models.42 Here and there the lesson is clear. Before you do anything else, the solution to the water problem is more and greater democracy •

 References

1 According to a study by the PSC, quoted in El País, edited in Catalonia, 14/4/1998.
2 For a characterisation of this socio-ecological interface, see Ramon Folch's recent work: Ambiente, emoción y ética. Actitudes ante la cultura de la sostenibilidad, Ariel, Barcelona, 1998; and Diccionario de socioecología, Planeta, Barcelona, 1999.
3 The limits where the biosphere ends and the technosphere begins are as blurred and conventional as many other socio-ecological questions. With regard to the part of the water cycle diverted towards domestic use, the supply network begins with catchment (reservoirs, wells) and ends in the metre in each household. However, on the exit side things are not quite so clear: the return link to natural systems is the treatment plants, or do we also include the sewers? In fact, now that the urbanism of networks and the socio-ecological vision of the city are going back to the «service galleries» proposed by Ildefons Cerdà in the mid-nineteenth century, it would possibly be more appropriate to consider the sewers as an underground extension of city buildings. An argument in favour of considering it in this way, and charging the cost to the corresponding rates and the tax on commercial and professional activities, is the option of adapting it according to the linear metres of sewer underground divided by the area covered by the building they serve. In this way, environmental taxation would penalise constructions of low density, as it should be, favouring land saving. The same criterion could be applied to other service networks to buildings.
4 The unequal effect of these expenses on the territory usually hides «horizontal subsidies», as pointed out in the comparative study of the Eurowater Project (A. Massarutto, «La situació tarifària dels serveis hídrics a Europa», in J. Esquerrà, E. Oltra, J. Roca and E. Tello, coords., La fiscalitat ambiental a l'àmbit urbà. Aigua i residus a la regió metropolitana de Barcelona, Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, 1999. pp. 133-150). It would be helpful to know exactly the existence and evolution of these inter-county or intersectorial transfers and the costs of water supply and treatment in Catalonia.
5 According to Water Treatment Agency data quoted by N. Prat, «El sanejament a Catalunya (1996-1998)», Depana (unpublished). Income from water treatment rates increased from 18,593 million pesetas in 1993 to 23,181 in 1998, 80% of which came from the domestic or industrial water treatment rate increment and the rest from the levy on extraction from private wells (Water Treatment Agency, Annual Report for 1998, Autonomous Government of Catalonia, Barcelona, 1999, p. 54). According to J. Gasull, CONFAVC representative, until 1993 domestic consumers paid 78% of water treatment costs. In 1994 the proportions changed: industry contributed approximately 10,400 million and domestic consumers 9,600 (in J. Samper and M. R. Llamas coords., Las aguas subterr‡neas en el Libro Blanco del Agua en España, Spanish Ministry of the Environment, Madrid, 1999, pp. 213-24).
6 The European and World average, in the World Resource Institute (WRI), Población y medio ambiente. La guía global del medio ambiente, Editorial Ecoespaña, Madrid, 1995, pp. 384-385. Data on Spanish river basins come from the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT) assessment for 1993 quoted by M. Fernánez Mejuto and M. R. Llamas Madurga, «Infrestructuras hidráulicas. Tópicos y manipulaciones en torno a la política del agua», Ecosistemas, nº 16, 1996, p. 48.
7 Quoted by J. Ros, «El agua: perspectiva ecológica», AGBAR Environmental Training Programme, No. 15, AGBAR/ERF, Barcelona, 1997.
8 Agencia Europea del Medio Ambiente, La Aplicación y la Efectividad de los Impuestos Ambientales, 1996, Institut Català de Tecnologia/Centre d'Estudis d'Informació Ambiental, Barcelona, 1997, pp. 21-22. For general criteria, see J. Roca, «Fiscalitat ecològica: introducció i aspectes generals», «, in J. Esquerrà, E. Oltra, J. Roca and E. Tello, coords., La fiscalitat ambiental a l'àmbit urbà... op. cit., pp. 13-27; and also, Fiscalidad ambiental y «reforma fiscal ecológica», Cuadernos Bakeaz n_ 27, Bilbao, 1998.
9 For legal and legislative aspects, see J. Perdigó, «La tarifa del servicio de suministro domiciliario de agua en el àrea metropolitana de Barcelona», in J. Esquerrà, E. Oltra, J. Roca and E. Tello, coords., La fiscalitat ambiental a l'àmbit urbà..., op. cit., pp. 159-192.
10 »Propuesta de Directiva del Consejo por la que se establece un marco comunitario de actuación en el ámbito de la política de aguas», presented to the Commission on 15/4/1997 and published in the European Communities' Official Paper issue C184/20 on 17/6/1997.
11 As Bernard Barraqué states, in the whole of the European area, the full effect of costs on fixed prices is more an objective to aim towards than an immediate reality: «historical experience clearly shows the difficulty in applying this type of policy to the expansive stages of the network development cycle, in which service must somehow be «rationed». The rigid and literal application of full cost pricing is moderated in all European countries by subsidies which are not always apparent which occur within the hydrological system.» («Sostenibilitat i gestió dels recursos hídrics: el projecte Eurowater», in La fiscalitat ambiental a l'àmbit urbà..., op. cit., p. 126). A. Massarutto states the same: «the problem we see in all situations is to find a compromise between the rigorous application of the «who uses pays» principle -according to which each consumer's tariff should be calculated on the basis of the marginal cost he imposes on collective infrastructure - and the need to apply some form of solidarity with the aim of tempering the inequalities this principle would give rise to» («La situació tarifària dels serveis hídrics a Europa», idem, p. 148).
12 This is even confirmed by the AGBAR study, El preu de l'aigua a diferents ciutats europees. Any 1997, Barcelona, 1998 (you can find a summary in E. Tello, «Tarifes i taxes en el cicle de l'aigua», in La fiscalitat ambiental a l'àmbit urbà..., op. cit., p. 107). For a report on other studies, where Barcelona always features with the most expensive water, see El País of 8/2/1998 and 4/9/1999.
13 J. Roca and E. Tello, L'evolució dels preus de l'aigua domèstica a l'àrea metropolitana de Barcelona del 1990 al 2000, Barcelona Metropolitan Municipal Authority, 1999, p. 8.
14 According to a comparative study on water for 1993, not counting the water treatment costs which go through public budgets, the percentage of the family budget which goes on the water bill was 0.4% in Italy and Belgium, 0.6% in France, 0.7% in Sweden, 0.8% in Germany and 1% in Austria (quoted in P. Arrojo and J. M. Naredo, La gestión del agua en España y California, Bakeaz/MAB/Coagret, Bilbao, 1997, pp. 85-86. These figures may be taken as a general indication, but are not strictly comparable to those in the text. As the aforementioned AGBAR argues, there are so many different conditioning factors in water prices that they are only comparable when they adopt coherent methodological suppositions which are common to all cases.
15 Anuari Estadístic de la Ciutat de Barcelona, Barcelona City Council 1996, p. 414. Domestic water consumption in Barcelona city is not comparatively exaggerated; despite that fact that it could be reduced even further through saving and efficiency measures. In 1996, it was 49.3 m3 per inhabitant per year. In 1991 there were 576,640 main households - not counting second homes -, which for a current population of 1,508,805 inhabitants, represents approximately 2.6 people per household. If we consider that the household corresponds to a family, family consumption of water was, on average, 129 m3 a year in 1996. All the water consumed in Barcelona, including industrial and service consumption, totalled 76.7 m3 per inhabitant (Anuari Estadístic..., op, cit., pp. 50, 409 and 457). This last figure, the equivalent of 210 litres of water billed per persona per day, is lower than the value-guide of 250 l/h/day proposed by Narcís Prat in his alternative proposal to the Hydrological Plan for the Inland Basins of Catalonia (N. Prat, «Planificar l'aigua i oblidar-se de la vida», in A. Borràs et al, Ecologia i terrori a Catalunya, Acció Ecologista/UAB, Bellaterra, 1996, pp. 15-30). If we add the losses of the supply network - one part is physical loss, the other undermetring -, Anna Prat estimates for 1997 a supply of 276 l/h/day and a real consumption of 225 l/h/day, of which 135.3 are for domestic consumption, 14.3 for irrigation, and 60.3 for commercial and industrial use (H. Barracó, M. Parés, A. Prat and J. Terradas, Barcelona 1985-1999. Ecologia d'una ciutat, Barcelona City Council, 1999, p. 85). Without actually proposing a reduction in per capita consumption, the draft currently awaiting approval the future Agenda 21 for Barcelona, foresees a reduction in extraction from the Ter of 28 hm3/year  - nearly 20% of consumption, and 14% of supply -, only increasing underground water exploitation (23 hm3/year, fifteen potabilised and seven for non-drinking uses), the re-use of treated water (4 hm3/year) and the exploitation of rainwater (1 hm3/year): Municipal Council for the Environment and Sustainability, Agenda 21 of Barcelona. Preparatory document, Barcelona City Council, June 1999, p. 27.
16 The comparison between water and school expenses is very pedagogical for the new sustainability culture. No one will have more children because schools are free, but free or excessively cheap water clearly leads to its being wasted. See E. Tello, «Por qué la escuela debe ser gratis y el agua no», En Pie de Paz, nº 50, 1999, pp. 84-88.
17 J. Roca and E. Tello, L'evolució dels preus de l'aigua doméstica a l'àrea metropolitana de Barcelona del 1990 al 2000, op. cit., p. 9.
18 Approximately 62% of homes in the metropolitan area in 1991 had fewer than four members, 23 % had four, and only 15% more than four. With regard to the population, 42% lived in households of fewer than four members, 31% shared between four, and only 27% lived in households of five members or more. In the Barcelonès region the percentage of large households was even smaller. (Municipal Housing Department, «Les necessitats d'habitatge a la regió metropolitana de Barcelona», Qüestions d'habitatge nº 4, Barcelona, June 1999, pp. 9 and 25).
19 According to ATLL, «the system's tariffs should not depend only on the volume of water transferred. As was pointed out previously, we must not accept the qualification of a water sale but, on the contrary, to propose the constitution of a public supply service. From this point of view, the infrastructure projected must, in any case, guarantee public upstream supply, which does not require an effective statement and the consumption of all the water for which it was built. Therefore, it is a question of setting a charge which could be qualified as a «guarantee», which is independent of the effective disposition of flow consumed at every moment. It is obvious then, that part of the public service tariff should be separate from effective consumption and should be linked exclusively to the fact that the recipient territorial body enjoys the guarantee and security afforded by the transnational supply (standing or service charge)», ATLL, L'abastament d'aigua a les comarques de l'entorn de Barcelona, Autonomous Government of Catalonia/ATLL, Barcelona, 1999, p. 87. The aforementioned ATLL report speaks of variable expenses of 31.2 pesetas/m3 (p. 77), whereas CONFAVC sources place the increase at 70 pesetas/m3 (J. Gasull, op. cit., p. 214). It must be borne in mind that the ATLL study «stems from a 50% subsidy of the investment in Catalonia, given the public interest raised by the project» (op. cit., p. 66). This means that the cost reflected in consumers' tariffs should be added to that paid as taxpayers.
20 A. Estevan, «Las nuevas técnicas de gestión integral de la demanda eléctrica y su aplicación a la economía del agua», in J. M. Naredo (ed.), La economía del agua en España, op. cit., pp. 103-120. For a more general view which includes many other activities, E. U. von Weizsäcker. L. H. Lovins and A B. Lovins, Factor 4. Duplicar el bienestar con la mitad de los recursos naturales. Report for the Club de Roma, Galaxia Gutemberg/Círculo de Lectores, Barcelona, 1997 (Amory Lovins and his colleagues of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado introduced a new philosophy of demand management in electric planning, and invented the term «negawatt»).
21 The ATLL study in favour of water transfer from the Rhone considers that it is not economically viable to reduce water consumption per household by modifying current appliances (WCs, taps, showers, etc.) which, supposedly, «could cost a minimum of 100,000 pesetas per household» (L'abastament d'aigua a les comarques de l'entorn de Barcelona, Autonomous Government of Catalonia/ATLL, Barcelona, April 1999, p. 35). Likewise, the cost of the Rhone aqueduct is estimated in the same study at 150,000 million pesetas at least (and experience shows repeatedly that this type of work always exceeds its budget). The Segarra-Garrigues canal alone has been estimated at a cost of 164,000 million, not including the Rialb dam, which has already been built. (El Periódico de Cataluña, 28/9/1999). In 1996, there were 1,465,900 family homes, with 4,228,948 people living in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. According to this, investing 100,000 pesetas in each household to save water would cost more or less that same as the transfer from the Rhone or the Segarra-Garrigues canal. Why is one option considered economically viable and the other not?
22 For the town-planning debate on urban dispersal and its alternative for a system of multifunctional cities that maintain their diversity, compactness, accessibility and socio-environmental quality, within their limits, see issue 22 of Medi Ambient. Tecnologia i Cultura; the exhibition catalogue for La ciutat sostenible (Centre de Cultura Contemporània/Diputació de Barcelona, 1998); and the book by S. Rueda, Ecologia urbana. Barcelona i la seva regió metropolitana com a referents, Beta Editorial, Barcelona, 1995.
23 N. Prat, «Planificar l'aigua, oblidar-se de la vida», op. cit.; and «Retos para la conservación de los ríos», Ecosistemas, nº 20/21, pp. 42-47. It must be remembered that the residents' associations at the forefront of the «water war» propose a hundred litres per person per day as a threshold of domestic consumption. The ATLL study itself underlines that the new «latent demands» arise particularly in «the counties of l'Alt Penedès, l'Anoia, el Garraf, el Maresme Nord and the coastal area of la Selva, which is not currently connected to the regional network, along with sharp increases in el Maresme Sud and el Vallès Oriental», while «the county of el Barcelonès would not create any latent demand on the regional network» (L'abastament d'aigua..., op. cit., p. 17). It also points out that «the increase in demand in the month of July is almost three times the monthly average for this increase» (p. 16). These are precisely the objectives that should be the priority of demand management, which combines progressive tariffs which the offer of aid and discounts for investing in saving and re-use. Tariffs and taxes could also be variables depending on the relative scarcity by month of the year and the rainfall or droughts occurring each year. It is paradoxical that consumption per inhabitant is higher in households with greater capacity for using rainwater, or space to install domestic re-use systems.
24 The Water Treatment Agency, Annual Report 1998, doc. cit., pp. 43 and 47. Currently, only 3.75% is re-used, but the Agency itself considers that existing demands would enable up to 41% of the 693 hm3/year of treated flow to be recycled (p. 47): that is 283 hm3/year. Of these, 95 hm3/year could be used as ecological flow - especially in the Llobregat -, and up to 63 hm3/year could be used for agricultural irrigation in place of other resources. It is also planned to use 14 hm3/year for golf courses, which could be put to better use.
25 N. Prat, «Planificar l'aigua...», op. cit., p. 16-17, and ATLL, L'abastament d'aigua a les comarques de l'entorn de Barcelona, op. cit., p. 12. In the inland basins, agricultural uses account for 29% and tourism for the remaining 5%.
26 C. de Gispert, «El tributo de saneamiento sobre las aguas residuales en Cataluña», in J. Esquerrà, E. Oltra, J. Roca and E. Tello, coords., La fiscalitat ambiental a l'àmbit urbà..., op. cit., p. 205.
27 Water Treatment Agency, Annual Report 1998, op. cit., pp. 51-58.
28 ATLL, L'abastament d'aigua..., op. cit., pp. 12-17.
29 N. Prat, «Planificar l'aigua i oblidar-se de la vida», op. cit., and «La gestió de l'aigua a Catalunya a la ratlla del 2000» (paper presented at the 4th Ecological Culture Exhibition, Altafulla, July 1999, currently being published). ATLL quotes the same study, but reduces the industrial saving potential within its supply system to 20 hm3/any (L'abastament d'aigua a les comarques de l'entorn de Barcelona, op. cit., pp. 34-35).
30 C. de Gispert, «Tarificació i tributs sobre l'aigua: aproximació a la demanda d'aigua d'ús industrial», June 1999 (an unpublished work presented to the Treasury Department of Barcelona University).
31 J.M. Naredo and J.M. Gascó, Spanish Water Accounts, OECD, Environmental Policy Commitee, ENV/EPOC/SE/A(94)2, Paris, 1994 (quoted by J.M. Sumpsi, «Efectos de las políticas tarifarias sobre la demanda de agua, renta agraria y recuperación de costes de la agricultura de regadío en España», in P. Arrojo and other eds., Hacia una nueva cultura del agua. El agua a debate desde la Universidad, Zaragoza, 1998, pp. 351-367).
32 J.C. Genovés, L. Avellà and M. García, «Precios, costos y uso del agua en el regadío mediterráneo», in P. Arrojo and other eds., Hacia una nueva cultura..., op. cit., pp. 245-247.
33 G. López-Sanz, «El regadío en la Mancha occidental y el Campo de Montiel», in J. López-Gálvez and J.M. Naredo (eds.), La gestión del agua de riego, Fundación Argentaria/Visor, Madrid, 1997, p. 84; P. Arrojo and E. Bernal, «El regadío en el valle del Ebro», in López-Gálvez and J.M. Naredo (eds.), La gestión..., op. cit., pp. 172-174.
34 J. Corominas, «Los regadíos de Andalucía después de la sequía y ante la Agenda del 2000», in P. Arrojo and other eds., Hacia una nueva cultura..., op. cit., p. 260-261.
35 J. Barragán, L. Cots and J. Montserrat, «Evaluación de los regadíos y mejora de su eficiencia», P. Arrojo et al (eds.), Hacia una nueva cultura..., op. cit., pp. 213-216.
36 J.M. Naredo, «Problemática de la gestión del agua en España», in J.M. Naredo (ed.),  La economía del agua en España, op. cit., p. 19
37 One possibility would be to establish a feebate or rebate, instead of the water levy. This new ecological taxation instrument implies that all that which is paid by farms would be returned in the form of aid, subsidies or discounts for improving irrigation systems. The tax would be completely «neutral», without increasing overall the tax burden supported by the agricultural sector. For the concept of feebate or rebate, see E. U. von Weizs_cker. L. H. Lovins and A B. Lovins, Factor 4. Duplicar el bienestar con la mitad de los recursos naturales, op. cit., p. 260-263.
38 P. Arrojo, «El Banco de Aguas de California», A P. Arrojo and J.M. Naredo, La gestión del agua en España y California, op. cit., pp. 129-135. One must reiterate that this is a democratically regulated public market, not simply the replacement of public planning with private transactions in an unrestricted market as proposed by J. C. Vergés in his «marxa enrerre en el socialisme d'estat» (in Una política económica para el agua, Businessmen's Circle, Madrid, 1998).
39 The California Water Bank was created as a response to the drought in the late eighties. It may contradictory that farmers should sell part of their water allowance - never all of it, to avoid them giving up farming to be «waterowners»  - right when the rainfall is lowest. However, it only appears that way to those who do not understand the agricultural diversity and intrinsic adaptability of a compensatory, or support, irrigation system. In view of the economic yield obtained per cubic metre, it is clear that buying water for urban use can more than make up for the loss of production of cereal crops or olive trees brought about by the drought. The method used to select the best option to guarantee supply is, as in electric demand management, that of least cost planning (P. Arrojo and J.M. Naredo, La gestión..., op. cit., pp. 103-106). Likewise, ATLL continues to focus the problem of guaranteeing supply from the old offer culture (L'abastament d'aigua a les comarques de Barcelona, op. cit., pp. 22-32).
40 For the legal aspects of the Rhone aqueduct, and the need to sign an international water cession treaty, see ATLL, L'abastament d'aigua a les comarques de Barcelona, op. cit., pp. 80-90.
41 J.M. Naredo, «Elección económica versus «guerras del agua», in «Problemática de la gestión del agua en España», op. cit., pp. 19-25; and also «Enfoques económicos y ecológicos en la encrucijada actual de la gestión del agua en España», in P. Arrojo and J.M. Naredo, La gestión del agua en España y California, op. cit., pp. 151-185.
42 M.A. Dickinson, «Water Conservation in the United States: A Decade of Progress», a paper presented at the International Conference on Water Efficiency in Cities held in Saragossa on 20 January 1999.
 
 

Municipalities and the new Water Act

Lucía Casado Casado and Carlos Padrós Reig.
Lecturers of Administrative Law, Autonomous University of Barcelona

Two laws on the management and taxing of water in Catalonia outline a new model of management, based on the integrated treatment of this resource. Its positive effects include favouring the principle of subsidiarity via local water bodies and the integrated treatment of the water cycle thanks to the creation of the Catalan Water Agency which unifies and agglutinates all the competencies of the Catalan Autonomous Government in terms of water management.
 

Water is a very topical issue, not only because of the large volumes of news coverage we are periodically exposed to from the various media- on the evolution and situation of the current drought problem, the current state of water reserves, the controversial issue of possible water transfer, problems associated with quality and persistent contamination, the minimum ecological flow or, above all, the creation of the so- called water market-, but also on a legislative level, because of initiatives that are being carried out in various fields, in favour of a more sustainable management of this natural resource. Water is evidently a burning issue of undeniable economic, social and territorial transcendence and, furthermore, a fundamental resource for the development of any society.
For these reasons, the Autonomous Government of Catalonia has to intervene in its order and it has effectively been doing so since 1981 by approving the First Law in this area- Law 5/1981, of July 4, a legislative display in the area of water evacuation and the treatment of waste waters- to date, through the approval of numerous legislative instruments and the implementation of a large number of administrative intervention techniques, the ultimate objective of which is the protection of this limited, yet at the same time essential, resource in order to assure its integrity, its adequate conservation and its rational use. In short, this order involves conciliating, in an orderly fashion, the demands of economic development with the need to protect the environment, such as is imposed by Article 45.2 of the Spanish constitution.
The Catalan Parliament recently approved Law 6/1999, of July 12, on the regulation management and taxation of water; a statute which, from the point of view of sustainability and being complimentary to the constitutional mandate incorporated in Article 45, proposes a new model for water management in Catalonia. Likewise, it is not an isolated legislative novelty rather it forms part of a reform which was initiated last year, of the organisational aspect, with the creation of the Catalan Water Agency, through Law 25/1998, of December 31, on administrative and fiscal measures and adaptation to the Euro.
Likewise, Law 6/1999 comes into being at a time when a proposal is being made for an in-depth reform, at various levels, of the basis for the articulation of the planning, management and the use of water for the coming years. On the one hand, on a state level, the Bill for the modification of Statute 29/1985, of August 2, on water  is being transmitted to the General Courts, in an attempt to provide solutions to the various practical problems associated with water management on a national scale, both from a quantitative perspective, as a result of the progressive growth in the consumption of this resource, as well as from a qualitative one, with the need to delve deeper into and perfect existing protection mechanisms. On the other hand, on a community level, the Council Directive Proposal presented by the Commission is being discussed, from which a community actuation framework in the field of water policies is being established2

The inspirational framework of the Law

Law 6/1999, of July 12, on the regulation, management and taxation of water is drawn up in order to provide a current solution to water management problems. The profound changes which our society has undergone in recent years, along with a growing awareness of environmental problems and the detection of a lack of sustainability in certain development models and their inherent effect on the quality of water resources, are the starting point that has propitiated the drawing up of new water legislation in Catalonia, in such a way as to situate current regulations in a more modern context, whereby new sustainable development imperatives are put into effect and the environmental perspective is stressed.
There are two main characteristics of these new water regulations that can be highlighted. Firstly, the establishment of the basis for an integrated approach to water management (supply and treatment)  (3). On the one hand, by designing a new administrative organisation for water matters, - the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) has been created which unifies and groups together all the competencies of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia in terms of water management, thus helping to achieve the objective of the integral treatment of the hydraulic cycle. On the other hand, by making the subsidiary principle effective with the creation of the Entitats Locals de l'Aigua- ELA- (Local Water Bodies), in order to achieve a more effective administration of resources, thus bringing the management of water closer to the citizens.
Likewise, this Law is inspired by recent community regulations. In effect, from an analysis of the community regulations on water matters, and in a clear manner, in the Council Directive Proposal from which a community action framework in the area of water policies has been established, one can deduce the aim of devising an integrated water policy that will include the entire hydraulic cycle. Likewise, on a community level it also includes the river basin district as an administrative unit which is basic for the purpose of water management upon which co-ordination, supervision and control measures have to be adopted, aimed at achieving the environmental objectives of the protection and sustainable use of water. Finally, it is necessary to take into account that this Statute is complimentary to the requirements of Royal Decree Law 11/1995, of December 28, which establishes those regulations which are applicable to the treatment of urban waste waters and which transposes the 91/271/CEE Council directive of 21 May on the treatment of urban waste waters.

The model designed for integrated water management

Law 6/1999, of July 12, on the regulation, management and taxation of water, has the virtuality to establish the basis for a new model in terms of the management of the water cycle in Catalonia, marked by an integral focus, designed on the basis of the application of a series of principals of a preventative nature- many of which are consolidated at a European Community level- which allow for a balance between the environmental protection of this natural resource and economic development.
From these bases, the first article configures the following as an aim of the Law: « to order the competencies of the Autonomous Government as well as those of local bodies in terms of water and hydraulic works, to regulate, under the scope of these competencies, the organisation and functioning of the hydraulic administrations in Catalonia by means of a decentralising, co-ordinating and integrating action which must include the preservation, protection and improvement of the environment as well as establish a new planning and economic-financial regime for the hydraulic cycle.»
In order to make this objective effective, the Law is structured on a Preliminary Title (articles 1 to 5), containing the basic principles that must override the actions of the Autonomous Government in water matters, along with the competencies of both the autonomous and local Administrations in this area, as well as five Titles. Title I (articles 6 to 10) is dedicated to local hydraulic administration; Title II (articles 11 to 14), to the supply of municipal waters; Title III (articles 15 to 24), to water treatment systems; Title IV (articles 25 to 36), to hydrological planning; and Title V (articles 37 to 55), to the economic-financial regime. We will now go on to analyse the main novelties of this regulation in relation to water management.

The basic principles
In its Preliminary Title, the Law in question proclaims the basic principles that must govern the actions of the Autonomous Government in carrying out their competencies in matters concerning water. The Autonomous Government, who has to ensure the sustainable use, saving, re-use, optimisation and efficiency in the management of hydraulic resources, will order its action in accordance with a series of principles of an eminently preventative character, among which we can highlight the management unit, the integrated treatment and economy of water; the compatibility of the public management of water with land-use planning, preservation and protection, the improvement and restoration of the environment and the ecosystems linked with the hydraulic environment; contamination prevention, the protection and improvement of water quality and treatment; the promotion of the actions necessary to address hydraulic deficits and imbalances; and the balance in territorial and sectoral development.
These principles, as established by the Preamble of the Law, are based on considering water as a scarce natural resource which is vital for the harmonious and sustainable development of economic activities, that has to be optimised and that requires efficient management by means of the introduction of water saving techniques and techniques for the promotion of the planned re-use of this resource.

The necessary intervention of the Autonomous Government to guarantee supply to the municipalities
Title II of the Law acknowledges the Autonomous Government, as the body authorised to co-ordinate the water cycle, to intervene whenever necessary in order to guarantee the supply to municipalities within the limits and terms established by hydrological planning. For this purpose, the basic supply networks, independent of their ownership and management regime, are subjected to the control and supervision of the Autonomous Government, who, apart from exercising the power established by the sectoral water legislation, has a series of attributed prerogatives, amongst which we can highlight the adoption of measures of substitution of all or part of the circulating flow in the basic supply networks for those of a different origin or from another source, while at all times respecting concession rights as well as the hydraulic planning framework; and the establishing, in situations of extraordinary drought or situations of need which require urgent water availability, of temporary measures in order to achieve the fairest possible balance in the distribution of available resources.

The water treatment system as a basic unit for the provision of the integral waste water treatment and evacuation service
Another important development of this Statute is the creation of the water treatment system  as a basic unit for the provision of the integral service of the treatment and evacuation of waste water and the transfer of its management to the Local Water Bodies, that have assumed the exercise of the municipal water treatment competencies, without prejudicing the ownership of the installations .
Using this new model, the granting of water dumping authorisation, the inspection, sanctioning, and the compensation of the eventual exploitation overcharging in the public water treatment systems of their area corresponds to the Local Water Bodies.  In contrast, the Catalan Water Agency maintains, in association with the public water treatment systems, the inspection and authorisation of the dumping of water from the system in the receiving medium. It is important to note that the authorisation of water dumping in the environment only makes connection to a public water treatment system exempt if this does not exist, or if when one does exist, it is authorised by the river basin governing body because it is deemed more beneficial for the environment.
Finally, it is necessary to note that the Law establishes a specific sanctioning regime in relation to the water treatment system. To this effect it establishes a catalogue of simple, grave and very grave offences that can be punished with fines of up to 1.000.000 pesetas, between 1.000.001 and 5.000.000 pesetas, and between 5.000.001 and 25.000.000 pesetas, respectively. The imposing of fines corresponds to the president of the ELA managing the system. These fines are graded in keeping with the seriousness of the offence, taking into consideration the damage and harm caused, the objective risk to people and goods, the external relevance of the misconduct, whether or not it was intentional and recidivism. In this way, the imposition of fines is independent of the obligation at any time to repair the damage and harm caused to the integrity and functioning of the system.

Hydrological Planning
The purely environmental character that inspires the new intervention model for water in Catalonia is reflected determinedly in Title IV, in establishing the new hydraulic planning regime, based on the River Basin District as a basic management unit. Planning, as a preventive instrument, has a fundamental role to play in the new integrated water management system established by the Law which we are analysing, for the achievement of some very concrete objectives. These are: to guarantee the sufficiency and the sustainable use of this resource, to economise its use and assign it to different uses in light of availability and required quality, to prevent the deterioration of the ecological quality with a combined focus on the treatment of pollution and the recovery of polluted waters.
The hydraulic planning of the River Basin District of Catalonia combines a series of territorially and sectorally based plans and programmes aimed at achieving the availability and the quality of the resources, as well as the preservation of the fluvial ecosystems. They are as follows: the Plan for the management of the River Basin District of Catalonia, the Measurements Programme, the control programmes, and the specific management programmes and plans aimed at dealing with individualised aspects of water management. The approval of the Measurements Programme corresponds to the Government, under the proposal of the ACA. The participation of the Local Bodies in the drawing up of these plans and programmes is also envisaged, through their representation in decision-making bodies of the ACA and by means of the inclusion of actions and works that are of interest to them.

The new water rates
One of the latter objectives proposed by Statute 6/1999, of July 12, in order to achieve a new model for water management is the simplification and rationalisation of the taxation of this resource by the Autonomous Government. For this purpose, within Title V a new water rate is created as a specific income to the economic-financial regime of the Catalan Water Agency, a tax of an ecological nature on the real or potential use of water and the pollutant load of the water dumped.
This tax, which substitutes the previous hydraulic infrastructure rates, water treatment rate increment and water treatment levy of the Autonomous Government, is subject to the prevention of pollution at source and the recovery and maintenance of the ecological flow, the achievement of the other hydraulic planning objectives, and in particular the endowment of the forecasted investment and infrastructure exploitation expenses; and for other expenses generated by the grouping of the functions which have been attributed to the Catalan Water Agency.
These rates, which apply to all consumers, except the public entities in relation to amounts consumed by research or control tasks and the management and improvement of the public hydraulic dominion, for the public fire service or in the event of catastrophe, for the use of water for feeding public water wells, the cleaning of the streets and the watering of the parks and gardens and the use of water for agricultural use when there is no contamination, represents an important development for domestic consumers. In effect, it guarantees a basic consumption level equivalent to one hundred litres per person per day, at an affordable price, taking into account the number of consumers in each home. Therefore, the application of the tax to domestic use satisfies social demands, ending the so-called «water conflict».
The exacting of water rates is compatible with the imposition of special contributions and with the collection of taxes, when fitting, by local bodies.

The new organisational model and creation of administrative water bodies

The Law in question states that the reforms aimed at achieving an integral treatment of the hydraulic cycle have also to be accompanied by a reform of the administrative bodies that have competencies in this sector. It demonstrates, in a way, how the administrative organisation, which can resemble an arid field and is not at all attractive for study, is however fundamental to ensure the proper functioning of a new public intervention framework in the water sector.
In this way, Law 6/1999, of July 12, is characterised by introducing important reforms in administrative organisation in terms of the order and management of water. These modifications respond to the principals of decentralisation, co-ordination and integration, especially when we take into account that there are at least two administrative levels that have competencies in the matter, such as the autonomous Administrations and the local bodies. Therefore, an administrative design that combines the criteria of integrated management and decentralisation in management must be guaranteed.
It has also been demonstrated how the existing administrative structures, in other words the Water Treatment Agency and the Water Board, offer only a partial and at times uncoordinated intervention in the hydrological cycle and therefore do not respond to the objective of the integral management of the water cycle.  This situation is made even worse by the double dependency of these Boards: the Water Treatment Agency being dependent on the Ministry of the Environment and Water Board being dependent on the Ministry of Territorial policy. It is for these reasons that two new bodies have appeared: the Catalan Water Agency and the Local Water Bodies.

The Catalan Water Agency
The Catalan Water Agency is the administrative authority that exercises the competencies of the Autonomous Government in water issues. The Agency has been the object of specific treatment by means of the approval of Law 25/1998, of 31 December, and Presidential Decree 125/1999, of May 4, which approves its Statutes.
The Agency therefore becomes the only hydraulic Administration in the Catalan territory constituted as an entity of public Law responsible for water matters within the scope of the competencies of Law 25/1998 and regulated by its Statutes, as well as by Law 4/1985 on the Statutes of Catalan public companies. In this way, the ACA, attached to the Ministry of the Environment, groups whose functions were up until now carried out by the Water Board, the Water Treatment Agency and the Directorate General for Hydraulic Policies, thus achieving the unification of the management of the water cycle. It is also emphasised that, together with this change in management, a phenomenon has been produced which we can call «environmentalism» from the moment management is transferred to the Ministry of the Environment, testimony of the vital relationship that exists between been water and the environment.
The ACA bodies are as follows: The Board of Management, the Board of Directors and the Council for the Sustainable Use of Water. The Management Council consists of representatives from the 6 Ministries involved (Environment, Agriculture, Industry, Territorial Policy, Health and Internal Affairs). Both the Board of Directors and the Council for the Sustainable Use of Water count on the representation of the local entities (4 in the former and 8 in the latter).
The basis for the creation of the ACA is the need to co-ordinate the administrative efforts of the various administrative bodies of rivers and local bodies, a co-ordination which is imposed by the very logic of the system, as well as by community regulations. In light of the fact that the water policies present a concurrence of Administrations on the same sphere of activity, the relationships among them have to be redirected in some way. Co-ordination, unlike co-operation, implies management power and an obligatory nature. In this way the limits for the faculty of co-ordination can be set out with the principal of local authority. It is endeavoured to avoid this conflict through the participation of the same local bodies in the co-ordination body, in other words the Agency. In this way, the administrative structure of the Autonomous Government is not alien to its municipalities in that they participate in the same co-ordination activity.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the Water Supply Body created by Law 4/1990 on water supply regulation in the Barcelona area is ascribed to the Ministry of the Environment as well as to the Agency and it assumes part of its competencies (planning, assignation of resources and relationship with local bodies).

Local Water Bodies
The local bodies also exhibit competencies in water matters and therefore have to have a presence within the administrative organisation chart in this matter. In this way, article 4 of Law 6/1999 establishes those tasks that correspond to the local bodies:
• The supply of drinking water
• The drainage and treatment of waste waters
• Sanitary controls of waste waters
• The exercising of functions established by this Law.
Complimentary to these competencies the Local Water Bodies are created that can either be of a basic or a qualified character. The former are territorial bodies that group one or various local bodies in order to manage the water treatment systems, the supply and delivery to the municipalities that they are made up of. They are bodies with their own jurisdictional character and capacity to manage the provision of the related services.
The model does not determine the number of ELAs that will exist in the territory as a
whole. This will depend on the capacity of each of the local bodies and the integration or not in a group of municipalities. The determination of the geographical scope of each of the ELAs will depend on the wishes of the municipalities. For this reason, a register exists which is managed by the ACA and to which the constitution of and any modifications to these administrative bodies has to be communicated. Now once they have been constituted, the municipalities that they are made up of are obliged to attribute the exercise of their competencies, or part of them, to the new entity. We are not therefore dealing with a voluntary or simply a consortium-type administration. In contrast, we are dealing with a truly administrative entity of a territorial, yet at the same time functional, nature with its own competencies, or competencies that are delegated or assigned by the Catalan Water Agency.
With regard to the willingness to integrate an ELA, it is worth mentioning that the criteria which must preside its constitution must relate to such aspects as demography, geography, the economy, etc. The integration of the municipalities in one or other entity, depending on other criteria is therefore not acceptable. The weakness of the Autonomous Government lies precisely in its lack of power to exercise effective control over the criteria of the integration of ELAs. The only disposition which allows a certain rationalisation of the system is the first Additional Disposition when it establishes that which corresponds to the Catalan Water Agency, the emission of a perceptive report on the constitutional expedients of an ELA.
Within this model, the basic ELAs have the following obligations:
• To collaborate in the management of the installations that form the basic supply networks
• The management of the waste water treatment system, including the granting of dumping permits (not, however, in the environment)
In any case, the municipalities retain the power to regulate the municipal supply. Article 25.2 of the LBRL recognises the municipalities' competencies in matters pertaining to sewage systems and waste water treatment. This attribution has been modified to some extent by Royal Decree-Law 11/1995 that implies the supra-municipal treatment of waste waters. Therefore, all the faculties related to the water cycle, except sewers, can be assumed by non-municipal entities. In other words, the local bodies do not disappear as a competent administrative level, in that the ELAs must necessarily exist, but only for that which involves urban waste water treatment or for other competencies which are voluntarily assigned to them by both the integrated bodies and the Autonomic Administration.
With regard to the qualified Local Water Bodies, it is worth mentioning that they differ from the basic bodies in two ways. Firstly, we are dealing with supra-municipal bodies (which enables the counties take part) or the grouping of local bodies, the territorial scope of which is defined in hydrological planning. The territorial scope is therefore not flexible as it is for the basic ELAs, rather it is determined by the planning activity. Secondly, they are bodies which are adequate for the integrated management of water in a river basin or part of the same (even if this adequacy does not necessarily imply the effective management of all the services which comprise the same). It is not an entity for the management of the water services; rather it is a planning entity. Such as is deduced by the parliamentary discussions on Law procedure, «The basic ELA refers more to an association of municipalities that jointly manage services, whereas the qualified ELA implies a wider concept that entails a planning element. We can say, although with some clarification, that it involves the hydrological regions».
The municipal groupings constituted in full bodies corporate respond, in part, to the inability of some municipalities to carry out the complex management of water in all its phases. It is necessary to remember that Catalonia suffers from the familiar municipal division of land into smallholdings and that many small municipalities experience difficulties in completing the obligatory competencies of the LBRL. Moreover, the reformulation of competencies, which up until now have been considered as municipal, such as water treatment, has been approved by Royal Decree Law 11/1995, of December 28, that transposes Council Directive 91/271/CEE, of May 21, on the treatment of waste waters. The Directive and basic State legislation modify the calculation criteria based on inhabitants/municipality for habitant equivalent, which also implies the modification of Article 26 of the LBRL, by entrusting the delimitation of urban agglomerations to the Autonomous Communities. This implies the relocation of a municipal competence to a supra-municipal level which in most cases needs to be institutionalised and which in Catalonia has been carried out by the creation of the ELAs.
The Directive respects the autonomous institutional principal of the Member States, by transferring the administrative organisation that has to apply the measures of community legislation to internal legislation. There is therefore no prejudice in the type of supra-municipal organisations selected, as the only requirement is that they must be representative of the municipalities. In this way, organisational formulae can be adopted, such as consortiums, associations of municipalities, or even the creation of an ad hoc local entity, which is what has been done in the end. The chosen option has a clear statutory support, in that Article 5.2 of the Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia foresees that the Autonomous Government can create territorial municipal groups of a functional nature and with specific aims.
Once more, we can question the compatibility of this system with the local autonomy. It is worth mentioning that it involves a compulsory system, whereby the local bodies are forced to empower the ELAs with competencies. Notwithstanding, this attribution of powers can be seen as beneficial to the municipalities from various points of view. In the first place, it is an activity that co-ordinates the integral management of water and therefore the Autonomic Administration is legitimised to impose an organisational model. In the second place, Article 18 of the Law obliges the Catalan Water Agency to attribute resources to the ELAs in order that they can provide their water treatment services in an efficient manner. The attribution of competence in a compulsory form is, in this case, accompanied by an obligation to provide financing, which does not always happen in local matters.
Finally, we can also say that the organisational model of the ELAs has a great virtue in that all the Administrative levels yield something. In this way, it does not involve a simple organisational imposition for the municipalities, but rather a truly new integrated political management design, with each level providing competencies or financing or both.  There are therefore no winners and no losers, rather a positive organisational balance.
The great potential of the ELAs lies precisely in the possibility of widening the scope of their attributions. This potential allows not only for competencies which, in accordance with the LBRL, are in municipal ownership or form part of the municipal circle of interests (but which have to be repositioned at a supra-municipal level in order to achieve integrated water management) to be concentrated in these bodies, but also the competencies belonging to the Autonomous Government and which can be attributed to the bodies in order to obtain a coherent and integrated policy in water matters.
According to the provisions of the same Law (Tenth Additional Disposition), the Metropolitan Body of Hydraulic and Waste Treatment Services is considered a basic ELA condition to supply upstream water and water for treatment. The other local bodies, including the consortiums that have been recognised as an Administrative character in terms of water treatment, must adapt to the dispositions of the Law within a period of 6 months (for example, the Consortium of the Costa Brava or the Maresme County Council).
It is necessary to pay attention to the regulation of the River Basin District, designed as an administrative area or management unit that groups one or more rivers understood as the zone of surface flow and underground water. It is the territorial area in which the new administrations can intervene, depending precisely on the territory comprising a District.
The geographical limits of the basins and sub-basins will be determined by Regulations. There is nothing to stop the administrative body in charge of carrying out of the actions of a sub-basin being an ELA.

Final Appraisal

The analysis of Law 6/1999, of July 12, implies a significant advance for water management in Catalonia. This Law brings with it some important developments. Firstly, one of the more relevant aspects is the integral treatment which is given to water, in line with new community tendencies.
Secondly, the creation of the Catalan Water Agency also implies an important advance, both for the unification of competencies in the water cycle, which were previously divided between the Water Board and the Water Treatment Agency, as well as for dependency of its competencies on the Department of the Environment. Likewise, we cannot forget the existence of inter-community basins (Ebro, Garona and Xúquer) and the overlapping of competencies that can be produced in these basins, which are affected by state legislation.
Thirdly, the creation of the new ELA figure can be positively valued, as they represent an innovative structure on the territory, they favour the subsidiary principle and they imply the return of water treatment and supply competencies to the local bodies.
Finally, it can be considered that we are dealing with a sound Law that allows for new perspectives for the sustainable management of a scarce resource, but one of undeniable social and economic value. For this reason, its prescriptions must be made effective and this will require sufficient financing •
 
 

References

1 Boletín Oficial de las Cortes Generales (Official Gazette of Parliament), Chamber of Deputies, VI Term of Legislature, Series A, no. 171-1, May 24 1999.
2 COM (97) 49 final, February 26 1997, 97/0067 (SYN). See also the modified Proposal of the Council of Directors, COM (97) 614 final, November 26 1997, 97/0067 (SYN); and COM (1998) 76 final, February 17 1998, 97/0067 (SYN).
3  Article 2 of the Law defines the «integrated management of water» as the «upstream supply or the domestic or downstream supply, waste water treatment, both upstream and downstream, and the return of water to the environment.»
4  The «public waste water treatment system» is defined in article 2 of the Law as «the series of interrelated public dominion benefits in an organic town, composed of one or more local drainage networks, collectors, fire stations, underwater emissaries, waste water purifying plant, and other associated water treatment installations, with the objective of gathering, conducting to a plant and treating, in an integrated manner, the waste waters generated by one or more municipalities».
5  During the time in which the Local Water Bodies do not assume the management of the water treatment system the facilities that form part of it are managed by the competent Authority.
6  Diari de Sessions del Parlament de Catalunya (Gazette on the Catalan Parliamentary Sessions) Series P- issue. 123, July 1 1999, page 8438
 

Irrigation agriculture and sustainability

Xavier Coll Gilabert.
President of the Governing Body of the Urgell Canals

Irrigation agriculture tends to appear as the top water consumer, the most wasteful and one of the ones which most contributes to the deterioration of this resource. The communities where irrigation is used are aware of this and, at the same time, of the positive effect of intensive farming on rural economies. For this reason, they propose the use of more efficient irrigation technology and a cultural change with regard to water.
 

Farming, particularly irrigated farming, is frequently criticised for being excessively intensive and not respectful enough of natural resources. One often reads that agricultural consumption is far greater than urban consumption, that a charge must be made for irrigation water to encourage a more rational use, or that the excess of fertiliser seriously damages the quality of water resources. The General Community of Irrigation Farmers of the Urgell Canals, which supplies are large geographical area of the counties of Lleida and constitutes the largest «green spot» in Catalonia, is well aware of all this, and also of the fact that, thanks to irrigation, an agrarian model has been established which has given a boost to related activities, such as stockbreeding, agricultural-industrial activities and services, and is a real driving force behind the expansion process in the Ponent region. For this reason, we defend the right to have the necessary water to consolidate it at our disposal, along with measures that favour modernisation and the gradual change to more efficient systems.
Modern irrigation technology opens up new possibilities, but, at the same time, irrigation farmers must make an effort to improve the cultural practices which avoid diffuse pollution and preserve the quality of the resource, and be aware of the fact that the future begins with the environmental integration of agriculture.

Background

Agriculture is an activity exposed to the elements, with no shelter, at the mercy of the wind and the weather. By its very nature, it requires large amounts of water, which is essential for the growth of plants and fruit, one part of which is integrated while the plant acts just like an air purifier, releasing oxygen into the atmosphere and reducing the amount of carbon dioxide.
There is no need to confirm scientists' predictions regarding climatic change, with a possible reduction in rainfall of up to 10% and an increase in its irregularity, for the water question to be considered. Since the nineteen eighties, society has become increasingly aware of the need to preserve the entire water cycle, taking care not only to improve the efficiency of the resource but also its quality, as advocated by the Water Charter approved in 1968 at the European Conference in Strasbourg. This Charter emphasised the indispensable quality of the resource in all human activities, which is not inexhaustible and must be preserved, by perfecting techniques of use, recycling and purification, so as not to jeopardise its later public or private use.
This awareness can also be seen in the approval of legislative reform in this period regarding hydrological matters, such as the Water Law of 2 August 1985, which now has a Reform Bill, the drawing up of the National Hydrological Plan and River Basin Hydrological Plans, the National Plan for Irrigated Land, the White Paper on Water, or the Catalan autonomic Law 6/1999, of 12 July, on the regulation, management and taxation of water.
It hardly seems necessary, obvious as it is, to highlight the importance of the role played by the general communities of irrigation farmers, as entities of hydraulic public dominion, who must safeguard the most rational and solidary management and distribution of public waters.

The Urgell Canals: a brief history

The idea of irrigating the Urgell plains dates from time immemorial. The Arabs built irrigation channels in the villages on the banks of the Segre and, in some parts of the plain, they established local irrigation networks derived from the rivers Corb and Cervera. People date the beginning of the history of the Urgell Canal from the times of Charles I, who signed ordinances for the construction of a Royal Irrigation channel, which Philip II extended with new dispositions. From then on, many attempts were made to build it. The consistent loss of harvests due to lack of rain led the people of Urgell to undertake the building of the canal themselves, but the extreme poverty they suffered made it impossible for them to raise enough money to pay for the work.
Projects failed one after the other, for over five hundred years, for any number of reasons. Finally, in 1852 a Royal Decree was published in the Madrid Gazette, which awarded the Girona-based company, Clavé Brothers and Co., the final contract  -which was transferred, fifteen months later, to Canal d’Urgell S.A.-, for a period of 99 years. It consisted of carrying out the public work (the main canal and 4 principal irrigation channels), the diverting of the course of the river Segre and its exploitation.
Once the contract ended, the Ministry of Public Works held an enquiry to determine whether the Urgell Canal should revert to the State, as stated in the Royal Decree of 3 November 1852, or to the irrigation farmers, as stipulated in the Water Law in force at the time.
On 10 August 1964 it was resolved by Ministerial Order that the irrigation farmers of Urgell should create a General Community –declared officially constituted on 24 December of the same year - which would be the holder in perpetuity of the exploitation rights of the waters and necessary irrigation works.
To improve irrigation, as the Main Urgell Canal was insufficient, Canal d’Urgell S.A. was awarded the rights to an Auxiliary Canal, which was built by the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation between 1929 and 1932 and later on, in 1966, handed over by the Authorities to the General Community of Irrigation Farmers of the Urgell Canals in perpetuity.
Finally, by a resolution dated 2 September 1991, the Ministry of Public Works constituted in favour of the General Community of Irrigation Farmers of the Urgell Canals, the exploitation rights for the water of the river Segre with a maximum volume of flow of 33 m3/s for the Main Canal in the Municipal Area of Ponts and of 8 m3/s for the Auxiliary Canal at Sant Llorenç de Montgai reservoir, Municipal Area of Camarasa, for irrigation, supply to villages and industrial uses. The amount used must not exceed 9,000 m3/hectare/year. Likewise, the Community was awarded the right to use drained water, which flows along the riverbeds in irrigated land and the underground water found therein.
They will hold these rights until 1 January 2061, in accordance with the stipulations of the Water Law of 2 August 1985.

The current situation

Up until 1959 the river Segre was not governed by any regulations and the irrigated lands of the Urgell Canals were forced to grow large amounts of winter cereals, mainly wheat and barley, due to the lack of water in the summer, and the inability to grow more profitable crops such as maize –corn-, alfalfa, onion, fruit trees or others. After that year, with the bringing into operation of the Oliana reservoir, with a capacity of 101 hm3., farming underwent a gradual transformation becoming increasingly intensive and favouring stockbreeding as a complementary activity.
With regard to hydraulic infrastructure, it was from 1964 onwards, when the Canals reverted to the irrigating country when a decision was made to improve the main network –144 km. of Main Canal, 76 km. of Auxiliary Canal and 103 km. of principal irrigation channels – with 171 km. coated so far and establishing a network of some 3,000 km. of secondary distribution irrigation channels and over a hundred regulator reservoirs for the 21 groups of Irrigation Farmers that make up the General Community.
The aforementioned Canals currently offer the following services:
• Supplying tap water for 120,000 inhabitants of 63 municipalities, with over a hundred town centres belonging to six counties: Noguera, Segarra, Urgell, Pla d’Urgell, Garrigues and Segrià, as well as an important number of farms, particularly of pigs, over a million animals, and a production of over two million pigs per year.
• Irrigation of 75,000 ha. with mostly summer crops –alfalfa 30%, sweet fruit 30%, maize 20%, others 5% - and fewer winter crops –wheat 15%-.This area is far too fragmented,  as it is divided into 52,717 plots belonging to  22,003 owners, with each plot measuring an average of 1.33 hectares.  Each person owns an average of 2.4 plots and an average cultivation area of 3.18 hectares. Irrigation is 90% based on flooding and only 10% uses trickle irrigation or sprinklers.
• It also serves over a hundred industries, mostly for food and agriculture, to which we must add those included in urban distribution networks. As for hydroelectric exploitation, there are some mini power stations along the Main Canal and the principal irrigation channels.
One of the main handicaps of farming in the Urgell area, is not being able to guarantee a water supply for the crops grown in the region, particularly the fruit trees, hay, maize and onions, which have suffered quantitative and qualitative losses in recent years, due to lack of water in Oliana from the second week of August onwards.
Despite having self-imposed restrictions on the percentage of summer and winter crops to be planted, to avoid critical situations in the summer, the amounts habitually used for irrigation in Urgell are in the region of 0.45 litres/second/hectare, half the amount considered ideal. Furthermore, one must point out that 15 % of the area dominated by the Urgell Canals is irrigated with water from outlet pipes, of poor agronomic quality, which in many areas must be supplemented with water from wells.
This precarious situation has not given rise to large yields and it is for this reason that investment has been considerable but insufficient. Today, it supports an apportionment of almost 20,000 ptas/hectare, which in the case of maize, is the equivalent of 20% of the gross profit margin for a normal year, having invested 8,500 million pesetas in improvements to the main and secondary networks in the last 30 years.

Opportunities arising from the greater regulation of the Segre

The greater availability of regulation of the Segre, brought about by the Rialb reservoir, with a capacity of 400 hm3. will not only redress the structural deficit in the current irrigated area of Urgell, with an objective issue of 8,923 m3/ha./year, 90% guaranteed and a high-summer modulation, will also enable the irrigated area of Urgell to be extended by 4.000 ha. and the conversion of 2,000 ha into irrigation land as compensation in the affected part of Rialb and upstream. In addition, a new irrigation area is to be developed on the Segarra Garrigues Canal, measuring 51,764 ha. on the right bank and 20,000 ha. on the left. Furthermore, the elevation of water from the lower Ebro will cover the guaranteed minimums established under the Hydrological Plan for the Ebro Basin.
No less relevant are the other improvements gained with Rialb, such as:
• An improvement in the water supply for almost half the population of the surrounding counties, which often suffer restrictions in the second half of the summer.
• Prevention of freshets, which are often considerable, such as those in 1907,1937 and 1982.
• Environmental compensation: This will enable ecological or maintenance flows to be established, which favour the biodiversity of fauna and flora in the river.
• It contributes to maintaining objective C-2 for the water quality of the Segre, which will facilitate treatment to make it drinkable, should it be necessary.
• Hydroelectric exploitation, with an increase in the region of 35% of current hydroelectric production in the river and by-pass channels, which will mean a saving on fossil or traditional fuels and will reduce pollution from carbon dioxide emission.

The modernisation of irrigation systems. Environmental aspects

The optimisation of water for irrigation, tending to save or rationalise the resource is an obligation envisaged by the Water Law in force and specified in the Hydrological Plans. The General Community of Irrigation Farmers of the Urgell Canals, is currently undergoing modernisation that includes adapting the Community's Ordinances and Regulations to new social demands with the aim of achieving integrated water management, facilitating the change to more efficient irrigation and distribution systems, that bring about an improvement in the irrigation of plots, requiring less labour and maintenance and with a greater technological level.
In this respect, it is considered important that the following tasks be carried out:
• Diagnosis of the state of the main and distribution network, to encourage its rehabilitation and improvement, paying particular attention to the coating of overland stretches and singular works, such as tunnels, U-bends or aqueducts.
• An assessment of irrigation systems already in operation, setting up programmes to study the correlationships existing between irrigation issues applied and the yield obtained.
• In irrigation by flooding, the periodic levelling of the land to avoid losses due to percolation or rain wash.
• To encourage the change to more efficient watering systems, such as sprinklers or trickles (localised), promoting fertirrigation as the best method to control the use of fertiliser. For fruit trees, for which it seems particularly appropriate, 82% of the surface is still watered by flooding and only 16% is localised. Watering with sprinklers constitutes a tiny proportion and is frequently used as protection against spring frosts.
• To raise awareness and promote the need to join plots together. This is difficult because it interferes with established crop growing, the existence of microclimates, soil types and other factors. Another possibility would be joint exploitation plans, based on working in groups.
• To offer irrigation farmers specific agricultural-climatic information on the area to enable them to know the water requirements, at each moment and for each crop, to be able to apply the correct amount.
• To develop the Dynamic Regulation Project for canals and principal irrigation channels, which envisages the construction of two tail ponds on the Main and Auxiliary Canals respectively, along with others of intermediate regulation, the installation of single-level sluicegates, the automation of by-pass outlet and remote control from headquarters.
Preserving water quality is a priority, that is why ecological or maintenance flows must be respected and action must be taken in the following areas:
• To achieve a reduction in diffuse nitrate pollution of water, in accordance with the Nitrates Directive (91/676/CEE), due to its effects on the environment and health. One must bear in mind that water containing over 50 mg of nitrates per litre is not drinkable. This causes problems in rural and sparsely-populated areas, amongst others.
• To avoid or reduce problems of diffuse water pollution caused by organic matter or phosphorous, given the large number of pigs in the area, more than a million, with the obvious waste matter this creates. Manure management must be based on both agronomic and environmental criteria, having recently taken important action to implement manure management policies, whether in collective dunghills which enable it to be incorporated gradually and carefully into farmlands or treatment plants which dry the solid part of the manure, using the heat generated in a co-generation plant, and carry out biological treatment on the liquid content.
• The situation would be unsustainable if there were no administrative measures of planning, monitoring and control to carry out Action Programmes for Vulnerable Areas, in accordance with the Code of Good Agrarian Practice (CBPA), a nuisance of a job which requires a good deal of training of farmers, stockbreeders and territorial planners.

Conclusions

Despite the approval of the River Basin Hydrological Plans, we have still to find a solution to the water problem which suits all the sectors involved. An instrument exists, the White Paper on Water, which must form the basis of the National Hydrological Plan and the reform of the Water Law. However, the debate must be open to the whole of society. In this way, the programmes of protection and use of water can be better known and understood and a social response obtained to the need to improve, guarantee and extend the availability of water resources. In this respect, the Catalan Law 6/1999, on the regulation, management and taxation of water, can make a decisive contribution to the preservation, protection and improvement of the environment, establishing a planning and financing system for the water cycle.
As for irrigation, thinking that the effect of costs on the water rates will be decisive and thus reduce the sector's demands, could be a serious mistake. This is because the farmer's demand for water, depending on the price, is very inflexible in the final stretch, as consumption does not decrease until prices are very high, with important economic, agronomic and social consequences (loss of competitiveness, diversity of crops and work due to the repercussions on the associated industries).
Furthermore, the modernisation of irrigated areas like l’Urgell, which is 140 years old, poses a serious challenge. The structural problems in these irrigated areas require integrated action, which is expensive and difficult to implement, but it is being undertaken in a credible and reasoned manner, albeit a little timidly. We must improve our management of the resource before any investments are made, but the social benefits derived from them must balance those already made so far, as otherwise they would prove unattainable for the sector.
Finally, in the same way that the agricultural sector is permanently concerned with reducing water consumption, urban society should do the same, and not only in terms of productivity, but also of sustainability, which enables the needs of the current population to be satisfied without jeopardising the needs of future generations, whilst respecting biodiversity and by means of suitable social organisation •
 

Bibliography

• MATEU, J (et al.) 1996: «El tresor dels Canals d’Urgell»
• VILA, J. 1992. «Els Canals d’Urgell i la seva història».
• FEDERACIÓN NACIONAL DE COMUNIDADES DE REGANTES,1999 : «Impacto de la política de precios del agua en las zonas regables».
• COLL, X., 1998:»Comunicación en IX Congreso Nacional de Comunidades de Regantes de Zaragoza».
• COLL, X., 1999: «Comunicació en el I Congrès sobre cabals ecològics. Terrassa.»
• BOLEA, J.A., 1998:»Las comunidades de regantes»
• MINISTERIO DE MEDIO AMBIENTE, 1998  «Libro Blanco del Agua en España»
• COMUNITAT GENERAL REGANTS CANALS D’URGELL, 1998: «Memòria dels SS.TT.»
• DARP, 1999: «Regadius, present i futur a Catalunya».

An interview with Marta Lacambra

Marta Lacambra trained as an economist. Before joining the Civil Service, she taught macroeconomics at the, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB - Autonomous University of Barcelona) and at the Escuela Superior de Administración y Dirección de Empresas (Higher School of Business and Management Studies), known as ESADE. Within public administration, she has gained considerable experience working in various ministries of the Government of Catalonia. From the Ministry of Education, she took part in drawing up the School Map of Catalonia. Later, she was general secretary of the Ministry of Culture and she has held the same post in the Ministry of the Environment since 1996. Commissioned to promote the Water Act -two previous attempts had failed -, Lacambra has played a key role in making the new law possible, in the design of the  Agència Catalana de l'Aigua (the Catalan Water Agency or ACA).  A new legal framework which settles the famous water bill conflict.
 

"The new law means a new way of planning and carrying out water management"
 

This was a case of third time lucky. Why was it possible this time to reach the consensus necessary to pass a law of such importance to the country?

Indeed, the first attempt to pass the Water Act was in the time of ex-Ministers Cullell and Roma; later the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, Artur Mas, tried. The third attempt was successful but both the context and the philosophy in which the Bill was drawn up were decisive. We were helped by the fact that the draft of what could be the new Directive was already in circulation in Europe, the approach experience of which served to unify water cycle management. This leaning broke the traditional dichotomy which brought the hydraulic construction block into conflict with the environmentalist approach, centred on water treatment.

So, the common starting point was Brussels' new policy?

The Catalan legislative project stemmed from the European Directive. That turned out to be the right decision. It was a new approach which offered many opportunities to bring about radical changes in the focusing of water policy. In fact, both the political representatives and the social groups and citizens' organisations linked to the water bill conflict understood that the Directive was novel and different from previous approaches. There was common ground on which to work together.

To what extent was the participation and involvement of all the social agents decisive?

 It was crucial and explains the enormous satisfaction felt by the working party. The success of the law's development formula lies in the fact that we have gained in trust in several aspects. This work method has made it possible to fulfil the obligations acquired with the Government of Catalonia.

What exactly were these obligations?

In the first place, to establish a single actor in the area of water administration in Catalonia. The citizens appreciate there being just one actor to speak, whatever the subject, on a particular problem as a whole and to give a holistic solution. The question of unifying water administration in Catalonia was therefore a priority objective, which has been fulfilled.
Secondly, we wished to reform the 1985 Water Act. The question pending was to clarify the role played by the different administrations in water resource management. Undoubtedly, the new legislative framework needed to approach the water cycle from the point of view of treatment and supply. However, it was necessary to clarify the competencies of the different administrations. The principle of subsidiarity has been applied; that is, everything that can be done is done on the level which is closest to the citizens.

Therefore, local government offices are central to the new law...

Quite. The law attributes an important role to local offices experience and also establishes mechanisms through which the supramunicipal bodies can organise their water cycles. The third element is that we had to settle the conflict of the water bill. If we had unified hydraulic administration and clarified the competencies between the autonomous and local government offices without defusing this conflict, there would have been a sense of failure. With the new law, the citizen sees clearly which costs are linked to water management, given that it is unified and done efficiently.

Which institutions and groups have taken part in drafting the new law?

Many. Barcelona City Council, the Barcelona Metropolitan Municipal Authority, the Federation of Municipalities, the Association of Municipalities, the Young Farmers, the Irrigation Farmers Communities of Urgell, the Ebro, Foment de Treball**, Chambers of Commerce, trades unions, the Federation of Residents' Associations of Barcelona, the Consumers' Association of Catalonia, Aigues de Barcelona (Agbar)...  We held almost 350 work meetings and one can safely say that all groups directly or indirectly involved in the water question have been heard and can feel that they have taken part in the law. I think we have found the lowest common denominator that clarifies the central axes of the law.
 
 

What are they?

To define hydraulic administration; to establish the planning axes; to plan the study of river basins; to establish a new water levy and define treatment regulations, once almost 300 treatment plants have been built throughout Catalonia. However, I think we are all very satisfied with the design of the Entitats Locals de l'Aigua (Local Water Bodies or ELAs). I am repeating myself because I think it is a key element in the drafting of the law, the establishment of a basic framework of agreement and rules of the game based on trust between all the groups concerned has made the new law possible.

But there are sectors, such as irrigation farmers' communities, that have different points of view...

It is true that the irrigation farmers' viewpoint has frequently been limited to whether water is paid for or not.  Things are much more complex than that: it is not a question merely of who pays taxes, but also of how much water is used, based on what deeds and what rights. The irrigation farmers' communities have a long tradition and it is very important that they share and explain their points of view.

Times change and traditions must move with the times...

Indeed, but the situation of irrigation farmers in Catalonia is very similar to that in the rest of Spain and Europe. The first step towards modernisation -which has already been taken- is to identify the actors and establish a flow of trust** with the other social agents.

Let's talk about the law again: what changes has it made?

The creation of the ELAs is fundamental, as it will improve co-ordination and decision-making considerably. The actors and decision-making bodies are clearly defined. Whether we are dealing with the topic of clean water, mini power stations or any other, the law establishes a new way of working which envisages any type of problem arising from the water cycle.
Planning policy is another aspect which will improve greatly thanks to this law. In the last twenty years, planning policy has been very compartmentalised. Plans have been implemented for supply, irrigated land, water treatment and several studies on the metropolitan environment, but detailed studies have never been carried out on concessions, rights, authorisations, etc. However, this law introduces new procedure and planning, as a plan is drawn up for each basin and from this, a programme of specific measures is designed.

And then an overall analysis is made?

In the first place all the rivers are analysed: the Llobregat, the Fluvià, the Muga, the Francolí, and so on. The law establishes that the sum of all flows must be established, the different uses in different stretches and the establishments** in each stretch, and the agents linked to each use. Likewise, the volume of flow available must be established. Finally, a total is reached and the ecological flow reserve**. The next step is to propose which quality indexes to maintain in each stretch.

Quality, integrated information becomes the central axis of planning...

Quite. The information system is the basis for establishing new treatment plans, plans for re-use and ecological flow plans.

All this work requires considerable resources. What is the water levy philosophy?

The income to be gained from this process is conceived as an environmental tax. Furthermore, in the domestic area, it regulates the charge** from a stretch considered vital. Therefore, the levy incorporates a certain sensitivity towards saving, rationality and efficiency. It aims to transmit the idea that it is easier and cheaper to maintain than to clean.

The exact opposite of the famous maxim: "he who pollutes, pays"; it is question of  compensating he who saves...

Exactly. The whole law aims to limit demand. The idea is that all sectors -industry, agriculture, stockbreeding and domestic- incorporate the philosophy of saving.

Could the law have been more daring with regard to the primary sector?

 Possibly, yes. In any case, I think that the law will change things in the statutes of irrigation farmers' communities. An example is the Urgell Canal. From the moment in which statutes are instituted in which co-operation between communers depends on the cubic metres consumed and not on the hectares to be watered, that means that there is a certain perception of how important it is to consume the smallest amount possible. We cannot change things overnight, but I am convinced that the European Directive, on the one hand, and the new legislation in Catalonia, on the other, paint a new picture for the primary sector. Don't forget that the new common agricultural policy will define a new scene where European farming will pay for the water it consumes.

The ACA has a big job ahead of it. How is it structurally organised?

From the very beginning we decided that we did not want the new government office to be the sum of the Water Board and the Water Treatment Agency. The design of the Catalan Water Agency responds to its aim: to execute the competencies established in the Water Management and Regulation Act. The establishment of a planning area, another of public hydric domain, one of inspection and control, one for income and finally a technical area has been established to be able to better respond to planning needs, to constitute the ELAs and, in short, to apply the law in the most efficient manner.

 Simplification and quality criteria?

And also a pledge from the Authorities to the consumer. From the very beginning, we wanted the ACA to give a streamlined service in the shortest possible time. In this respect, we consider information management to be a key aspect of the ACA. The three great challenges are: the creation of a Geographic Information System (GIS) for each river basin; the aspects of co-ordination, and the management of a new levy able to tailor the charge depending on the number of consumers on the metre.

Difficult challenges...

It is not easy, especially bearing in mind that in many cases the information comes from the supplier. The supplier bodies will also have to adapt to the new reality.

What human and economic resources will the ACA have available?

It will include the staff of the Water Board and the staff of the Water Treatment Agency. Economic resources come from the hydraulic infrastructure levy, from the European fund and contributions from the State. In fact, the source of income has not changed much. The change lies in the fact that the two taxes in existence become one: the water levy.

And management becomes more political?

There are three organs. The Board of Directors, which is a public body, with representatives from the Ministries of the Catalan Government which are involved directly with water management. They are: Agriculture, which deals with irrigation; Industry, with the question of mines; Health, with regard to the salubriousness of water, and the Home Office, involved in land-use planning. Then there is a management and executive body, with mercantile responsibility. The Board of Administrators is made up of representatives of the different water consumer bodies, from irrigation farmers to industrial entities.
As for domestic use, representation corresponds to local government. The development is the Council for Sustainable Use.

Is that a type of Advisory Council?

Yes, but an Advisory Council which should find a point in common at which to start a work process. There is a part of information that it is still very important to share because water consumers still work around several groups.  There are few environments in which this information is shared. The philosophy and spirit of the new law requires a network.

How do you see the ACA in a few years time?

The evolution of our society is determined by two vectors: Europe and the citizen. Therefore, the axis of the ACA will be a quality, streamlined service offered to the citizen. To do that, it should have available systematised, quality information. Europe will soon establish which common information systems should be used to determine the uses water is put to, quality requirements and authorised dumping levels. In ten years time, I see a society of information where water will be a totally strategic question and, therefore, the public institutions will have to know it and know it well

Environmental legislation
The new legal regulation and management of water in Catalonia

Ignasi Doñate
Lawyer, expert on environmental issues

1. Introduction

The Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya -DOGC- (The Official Paper of the Catalan Autonomous Government) of July 22 last, published Law 6/1999, of July 12, on the regulation, management and taxation of water. This law has entailed the culmination of a process leading towards the integrated management of water and that spells the beginning of a new regulation process, which will result in the approval by the Autonomous Government of Catalonia, within a maximum period of one year, of a unique text which will contain all those legalities in force in terms of both continental waters of autonomous competency and sanitation.
This new law intends to incorporate the environmental principals and objectives of the European Union through the integrated management of water; the administrative structures for water management are unified and the subsidiary principal is established in favour of management by the local bodies and water rates are rationalised and simplified, thus complimenting the agreements that will put an end to the so-called «water war» waged by the residents movement.

2. The constitutional framework

In accordance with the Spanish Constitution, and as anticipated by the Autonomic Statute of Catalonia, the Autonomous Government of Catalonia has exclusive competence in «hydraulic, canal and irrigated land exploitation when these waters run integrally within Catalonia». Likewise, within the basic legislative framework of the State, the legislative development and execution of environmental protection measures corresponds to the Autonomous Government of Catalonia.
In this respect, the Autonomous Government of Catalonia has full competencies when it comes to the waters in the inland basins of the Principality (of the rivers: Muga, Fluvià, Ter, Daró, Tordera, Besòs, Llobregat, Foix, Gaià, Francolí, Riudecanyes) and the coastal rivers along the French border. These are distributed in three different basins: those of the North, Centre and South. By contrast, in the western zones (Segre and Garona), as well as in the area of the Ebro, the basic competencies correspond to the State.

3. The state framework of ownership and exploitation of the waters

The new Catalan law is of an administrative nature and in this sense has as its programmatic objective the ordering of the competencies of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia as well as those of the local bodies in matters relating to water and hydraulic works. Within the scope of these competencies, the law regulates the organisation and functioning of the hydraulic Administration of Catalonia, by means of a decentralising, co-ordinating and integrating action, which must embrace such issues as the preservation, protection and improvement of the environment, as well as establish a new planning and economical-financial regime for the water cycle.
This administrative order needs to be framed within the area of the state regulation on public domain and the exploitation of water, which are regulated in articles 407 and 425 of the Civil Code and partially repealed by the Spanish water norms in force, Law 29/1985, of August 2, Official Gazette no. 189, of August 8 1985. The differences between the old regime established in the Civil Code and the new one of the Water Laws are significant, especially when it comes to the regime of the private ownership of water. The Civil Code acknowledged and regulated the private ownership of water. By contrast, the Water Law defines in wider terms the misfortune known as «public hydric domain» and ceases to regulate water of private ownership in order to introduce the concept that the general principle of inland waters is that of their public nature, giving private waters an almost residual character. In the light of this, we can almost say that all the surface inland waters in the State have become public domain. In this evolutionary process, Spanish Law has converted all «renewable» waters into public domain, based on the concept of the water cycle unit.
The juridical doctrine distinguishes the following from the public domain of water: public waters by nature- they are public regardless of the private or public nature of the estate from where they originate-, public by fixture- when the water is found in a terrain that is of public domain- and public waters that were originally private, waters which come from a private estate and become public once they leave the private property.
The public ownership of the riverbeds of natural running water- continuous and discontinuous- as well as the beds of lakes and lagoons, is also determined by the same law. By contrast, the riverbeds upon which rainwater flows are private domain, only providing they cross private estate from their beginning.
The term «private ownership» when applied to water has been questioned on many occasions, as this is a natural resource which is in constant renovation and of many social uses. In this sense, «ownership» in practice resembles the concept of the «private exploitation» of water and for this reason it is necessary to take into account, not so much the public or private nature of water, rather which are the legal faculties or possibilities for the private exploitation of water, despite its being public domain.
The exploitation of water is basically regulated in the Water Law which, forbidding the acquisition of the right to exploit water for a 20-year prescription, establishes the system of administrative concessions as a normal procedure for the authorisation of the private exploitation of public water.
The communal exploitation of water of public domain is any exploitation that does not exclude the use of water by a third party and, for this reason, does not pose special problems due to its almost non existent social and ecological impact. Such exploitation is considered as «general» when it does not involve the slightest modification of the quantity and quality of water- bathing, drinking, domestic use… By contrast, when communal exploitation entails dangerous, intensive or similar circumstances, it is qualified as a «special» exploitation- navigation, leisure boats…- and has therefore to be subjected to an administrative authorisation, which is normally of a temporary nature. Nevertheless, it is not clear for which types of communal exploitation it is necessary to apply for an administrative concession and not simply a permit.
By contrast, the private exploitation of public water has a greater economic and social impact and is of an exclusive character and which, therefore, limits the exploitation of water resources by a third party and by society in general. At this moment, due to its exclusive nature, legal provisions are being made for an order of exploitation preferences and that will be determined by the Hydrological Plan of each basic. The same Water Law prescribes the general order of preference, only on a subsidiary level: supply to towns, irrigation and agricultural use, industrial use for electric energy, other industrial uses aqua culture, recreational use, navigation and aquatic transport, and finally, other uses. In each and every case, the supply to towns will always have priority.
The private exploitation of public waters, despite being the object of an administrative concession, constitutes a right that is lodged in the patrimony of the titleholder of the exploitation. It is a right of an administrative kind, of patrimonial content and which can, therefore, be the object of business, it is qualified as being of a real nature, opposable before everybody, subject to traffic and of a real estate nature. In this sense, the private exploitation of public waters has to be inscribed in the Water Register which will allow for better information on the exploitation rights granted and their inherent limits and conditions.
The exploitation concessions expire once the concession time is up, if it has been declared expired due to failure to comply, or due to discontinued use during a period of three consecutive years, due to forced expropriation or the renunciation expressed by the concessionaire.
Despite the evolutionary tendency to declare water to be of public domain in all cases, it is obvious that the owner of an estate has the right to exploit the spring water existing on the estate when the total annual volume does not exceed 7000 cubic meters. This acknowledgement does not imply that these waters are private, even though this private exploitation means that the virtues of ownership are confused with those of exploitation. Also in the case of underground water it is possible to legally speak of water for private exploitation, which is water which is not legally considered as an integral part of the public domain, due to the fact that it is not integrated in the water cycle.

4. Inland waters as a resource and a source of life or as a mere object of exploitation

Nevertheless, it seems obvious that a new regulation is needed of the regime on the ownership and exploitation of water. In the first instance, significant confusion exists due to the lack of a clear repeal of the precepts of the Civil Code by the Water Law of 1985. In the second instance, despite the progressive disappearance of the those waters once considered as private property, the wide range of private exploitation dilutes the public character to the point of leaving it void of all sense and continuity. But, above all, the strictly anthropocentric character of the private concession priorities creates a situation whereby global or ecological criteria become second level priorities. Under current legislation, water is not considered a source of life that has a specific function in itself; rather it is considered only a resource for exploitation, at the service of private anthropocentric exploitation.
As professor Ramon Margalef explained in a lecture (UIMP-Environment. An analysis of management problems and proposals. Barcelona, 30 June 1994): «Obviously, it is also necessary to take into account that the aforementioned hydrological plan (National Hydrological Plan of the Spanish State), such as has occurred in other places throughout the world, in California, in Russia, etc… changes the ecological conditions in the areas concerned, to a greater or to a lesser extent, mortgaging the very future of some of them. It is based on an idea, which may seem great, maybe only because over 20 centuries have passed from whence it was first formulated, and according to which it is deemed opportune to exploit up to the last drop of a river, and to such an extent that is no water left to deliver to the sea. It is also deemed opportune, according to the «bright sparks», to cut and to straighten rivers, to eliminate meanders and to use all or the majority of a river's energy to produce electricity or for other functions. This vision does not take into account that fluvial circulation is a cleansing mechanism for the continents, as well as a mechanism of exchange between the continents and the sea, and which has functioned in an acceptable manner up until now and is beginning to show evident symptoms of insufficiency».
The process of continuous degradation of the hydrological system is a demonstration of the insufficiency of the concept of public hydric domain, of the excessive private exploitation of the resource and the lack of will on behalf of the legislator to define and defend the ecological function of continental waters making it compatible with its sustainable exploitation. The riverbeds are an object of urban speculation which permits the establishing of urban nuclei in zones where flooding can occur, as well as the promotion of the channelling of rivers according to security criteria which leave much to be desired, and which also permits the urban speculation of riverbeds, a phenomenon which hides the unconfessed conversion of public domain into private domain.
The survival of the riverbeds and, therefore, the recuperation of the rivers requires the establishment of clear measures for the protection, use and management of the hydrological system. The legal definition of the riverbeds as an area which is covered with water due to its maximum ordinary freshets is in itself a demonstration of its insufficiency, of the heterodoxy implied by the separating of the riverbed from the basin in which it is situated, by conceiving the riverbed without taking into account its functionality within a wider system. In this sense, it is necessary to move on to a new regulation on exploitation, subjected in any case to an environmental impact study and with a wider territorial configuration of the riverbeds, which allows for the establishing of different levels of protection and usage and following, parallely, the zoning systems established by the Coastal Law.

5.The reform project of the state Water Laws. The water market.

On May 24 of this 1999 year, the Butlletí Oficial de les Corts Generals (The Official Parliamentary Gazette) (Series A, no. 1,711) published the Bill to modify Law 29/1985, of August 2, on Water.  The most significant development in this project is that which is known on a public level as the «water market». It is true that water is of a public domain. However, this does not prevent individuals from buying/selling their rights to exploit water. There is no need to mention that the introduction of this «market» notion entails a privatisation of the resource, thus correcting the tendency of current law to make water public.
In fact, it is true that the current law already clearly anticipates the possibility for the total or partial transmission of any water exploitation which involves a public service. This transmission is currently subjected to a prior administrative authorisation. The novelty of this project lies in the disappearance of the administrative authorisation prior to transmission, which implies a liberalisation of the market which opposes the planning requirements involved in any ordered or balanced public service, whereby needs in terms of supply and production use, as well as the most fundamental and basic ecological needs of continental waters are taken into account. As Antonio Embid Irujo reflects (Revista mensual de gestión ambiental (Environmental Management Monthly Magazine)- Year 1. Issue 7. July 1999. The Law-Present Time) «But I do not want to conclude without pointing out some tasks which remain pending, such as, for example, a reflection on the relationship between the Institution («the water market») and hydrological planning and their compatibility, a distinctive indication of the Law, and which appears to be one of the first challenges to be faced, at least from a juridical point of view. Similarly, the relationship between environmental care and the market, especially after having carefully read the experiences of other countries which highlight a lack of awareness of environmental concerns as one of the undesired characteristics of the establishment of the market».
Reform is justified in the same project due to the existence of practical problems associated with water management on a state level and also due to the absence of efficient instruments to meet the new demands for water, in terms of both quantity and quality. This is captured in the exposition of project motives when it says «In this way, the intense drought suffered by our country in the first few years of the last decade of this century, imposes the search for alternative solutions, which, independently of the best re-assignation of available resources, allow, by means of planning mechanisms, on the one hand, for an increase in the production of water through the use of new technologies, granting legal status to the juridical regime of the desalination and reutilization proceedings, and which, on the other hand, allow for the optimisation of efficiency in the use of water for which the required flexing of the current concession regime is necessary by means of the introduction of the new contract for the cession of the rights to use water, which will allow for a social optimisation of the use of such a scarce resource, and finally, the introduction of saving policies for this resource, establishing either the general obligation to measure water consumption through approved control systems or through the administrative setting of referenced consumption for irrigated land.
Such terms as the «increase in the production of water», or the preferred objective of the «optimisation of the use of such a scarce resource» in connection with the phenomenal reference to «drought» and the almost non-existent reference to environmental requirements- which must be considered as obsolete by the authors of this project- allow for the turning of the hydrological plan into an absence of both public reflection and of prior control of the water resources, ignoring the possible change of use that each transmission entails, and placing the imposition of the «market logic» above the most basic environmental needs of the different ecosystems and settlements.

6. The integral regulation of the Principality's water

One of the main virtues of the new Catalan law, despite its existence within the referred state legislation, is that of setting down the basis for the regulation of the water cycle, by means of its integrated management, from the upstream supply, through domestic supply or downstream supply and waste water treatment, to the return of the water to the environment.
Until recently, the water cycle was controlled separately by two different types of bodies that were in turn dependent on two different advisory boards. On the one hand, the Directorate General for Hydraulic Policy that established the guideline for hydrological planning and the management of hydraulic domain, co-ordinating the activities of the Catalan Water Agency, as well as those of the administrative bodies attached to the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Public Works. On the other, the Water Treatment Agency attached to the Ministry of the Environment and in charge of water treatment in Catalonia, the application of rates and the control of water quality.
With the approval of the Statutes of the l'Agència Catalana de l'Aigua –ACA- (the Catalan Water Agency), the Directorate General of Hydrological Policy, the Water Board and the Water Treatment Agency were fused within this organisation, under the Ministry of the Environment.  In this way, therefore, the ACA, as a public company, embraces all the hydrological competencies of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia and integrates representatives of the competent administrations, consumers and representative bodies associated with water.
The basic principals that must govern the actions of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia in terms of the regulation and management of water are based on the consideration of water as a scarce natural resource which is vital for the harmonic and sustainable development of economic activities, a resource which has to be optimised and that requires efficient management through the introduction of water saving techniques and techniques for the promotion of the planned reuse of the resource.

The creation of the so-called Entitats Locals de l'Aigua (ELA) (Local Water Bodies) is regulated and they are attributed, as organs of co-operation between the local bodies and the ACA, with competencies and resources in terms of water supply and waste water treatment in order to ensure a more efficient management of water resources. The basic ELAs are bodies which are entitled to integrally manage one or more public water treatment or supply systems. By contrast, the qualified ELAs are configured as bodies dedicated to the integrated management of water in a river or part of a river, the territorial scope of which is defined by hydrological planning.
In order to increase control over the sources of supply to settlements, the Autonomous Government of Catalonia is acknowledged as the owner of the competencies for the regulation of the water cycle, authorised to adopt measures which guarantee the supply of water to the municipalities, within the limits and terms established by the hydrological and redistribution planning of the resource.
The public waste water treatment system will be managed by those ELAs that have assumed the exercising of sanitation competencies. Therefore, the following activities will correspond to the ELAs: the granting of dumping permits, carrying out inspections, sanctioning and reimbursing the possible extra exploitation costs in the public water treatment systems within their area. They will also have to draw up and maintain a census of all the companies connected to the system and are responsible for the execution of the supply limits of the system to the receiving environment. The Catalan Water Agency maintains the superior inspection and administrative intervention in dumping from the system the system in the receiving environment. In this Title, a specific sanctioning regime is also established at the same time.
The hydrological planning regime is based on the «River Basin District» as a basic unit for management. In this way, a series of programmes and plans of a territorial and sectoral nature make up the planning which are aimed at achieving the availability and quality of the resource, as well as the preservation of the fluvial ecosystems. The new programming regime takes the planning objectives into account and it determines the participation of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia and, if appropriate, the participation of the beneficiary entities in the financing of each action.
The law regulates the creation of the new water rate, as a specific income of the economic-financial regime of the ACA, that has been defined by the law as a «tax with an ecological objective». This water levy is imposed on the real or potential use of water and the pollution that its dumping can cause, including uses of an indirect kind arising from fluvial or running waters, be they associated or not with a production process.
However, the following are declared as exempt from the levy:
• the consumption of water by the ACA, the ELAs and State bodies for investigation or control operations, or experimental tests that will not be for any exploitation purposes, operations for the management and improvement of the public hydric domain and operations carried out for public works within their competencies.
• consumption by the public fire extinction services or those services ordered by the public authorities in situations of extreme or catastrophic need.
• uses corresponding to the use of water by public entities for the supply of public and monumental fountains, street cleaning, the sprinkling of public parks, gardens and sports fields.
• the general upstream supply of other public services for the distribution of drinking water.
• the consumption of water for agricultural use, only when this does not involve contamination of a special kind, by either nature or quantity, from fertilisers, pesticides or organic material, verified by the inspection service of the competent Administration.
• the domestic usage of water in all nuclei with a population of less than 400 inhabitants, as its base population, and that does not dispose of a home water supply system or a network for the treatment or evacuation of waste water.
The first drafts of the new water law included a tax on agricultural irrigation. The proposal met with opposition from the affected parties and was therefore withdrawn. Likewise, the project presented by the Government maintained a reduced tax for the use of water in medium to large capacity livestock exploitations. During the parliamentary negotiations, this tax was also withdrawn. By contrast, those irrigation activities for golf courses have to pay a general tax in this sector of 13.14 pesetas per cubic metre; the only cases that will be exempt from this rate are those that use recycled water. Likewise, the hydraulic power stations will not pay water rates and nuclear power stations will only pay that tax which is specific to water that is dumped, whose temperature increases by more than 3 degrees.

7. Awaiting the development of the new law

The positive advancement of the new law could result in optimisation or failure, both depending on the measures and instruments that are included in the text and which must rework the different existing Catalan norms, as well as in its development through later regulations.
Only with suitable planning instruments, based on the ecological consideration of the continental waters, can the figure of misfortune known as the «water market» be made compatible with general interests. The experience of this figure in the American continent is not exactly an omen of the rationalisation of both the social and ecological requirements. The lack of research on what the «water market» really could be should stimulate the legislator to establish prudent measures that limit the impact of the functioning of this market- time limits and limits on use and territory.
On the other hand, research on existing resources, the quantification of the same, their economic evaluation and their non-speculation, based on overestimated future demand forecasts, are elements that should be taken into account in order to achieve the adequate management of water resources, where each day the fight for sustainability will lead us not into increasing the amount of resources available, rather to optimising use and consumption savings and with a minimal interference in the natural water cycle, which is currently being seriously disrupted by the contamination of surface and underground waters, to such an extent that it is becoming difficult to recover their use.

News
No clinch for the Climate Summit

Johanna Cáceres
 

The latest Climate Summit, held in the German city of Bonn from 25 October to 5 November, concluded, yet again, with little progress. The nearly 200 states attending failed to agree on the way to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, nor did they commit to doing so effectively.
This was the Fifth Conference of the Members of the Framework Agreement of the United Nations on Climate Change. One hundred and fifty-three states, not including the United States, signed the agreement in 1992 during the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, which was then considered to be one of the most important documents. The signing governments for the first time officially recognised the existence of climatic change caused by atmospheric pollution of human origin and expressed their intention to redirect this situation. Since then, negotiations have been extremely slow.
During the seven years since the signing of the agr-eement, the most relevant fact has been the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which details a number of measures to be adopted to effectively reduce emissions. The truth is, however, that little has been done in terms of policies and specific actions in this regard because, among other reasons, not one country has ratified the agreement. With the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the industrialised countries committed themselves to reducing their CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by the second decade of the 20th century (between 2008 and 2012). Once again, the United States opposed the agreement because it did not involve developing countries.
The American posture, forced by the Senate, continued in the same line in Bonn, although it seems clear that the current problems relating to the climate have not been caused by developing countries. The so-called Third World has not had the «opportunity» to pollute much if compared with Western countries, which began the industrialisation process three centuries ago. The less developed countries, in turn, are claiming their «right» to become industrialised in order to reach the levels of welfare of the richest countries on the planet.
The question is, whether there is only one way –that of unsustainable development initiated by the First World– to improve the worst of economies. It would seem not, since currently available technology, accompanied by new economic models, makes it possible to generate wealth while polluting less. For this reason, one of the demands of the developing countries is that the agreements on climatic change include the commitment on the part of the industrialised countries to facilitate technology transfer, especially with regard to «clean» or renewable energy sources and technologies relating to energy-efficient processes.

The international CO2 market
Another «hot» point of the discussion in Bonn was the so-called flexibility mechanisms or alternative routes, including the sale of emission rights. That is, a country which pollutes a lot - generally a rich country - can buy from a poor - non-industrialised -  country its unused CO2 quota. For example, the per-capita emissions of the United States are 25 times higher than those of the Philippines. Hence, all Americans could continue with the same emission levels by buying from the Filipinos their quota, their right to pollute. Of course, they would have to pay and polluting would be more expensive.
The measure is controversial and doubts have been raised about its usefulness if it serves to maintain the status quo. We should remember that climate change and other elements of the global environmental crisis have been caused mainly by the production activity of just 20% of the world population: the points of pollution may be local, but their effects are global. In this regard, as pointed out by the European Union, the existence of a  CO2 market does not free a country of the responsibility to reduce its own emissions. And this is the source of another point of disagreement with the United States, which do not want to put a limit to emissions trade, whereas the EU sets it at  50%: half of the effort to cut back on emissions should be made within the country's own borders.
Finally, for the application of the Kyoto Protocol to be really effective, it needs to be ratified by at least 55 countries, making up for 55% of global emissions. The United States are responsible for 35-40% of world CO2 emissions and Russia, for more than 15%. If these two states do not ratify the Protocol, it will be worth very little.
These are, essentially, the main obstacles to be overcome to obtain effective action regarding the climate. In November 2000, the sixth Summit will be held in the Netherlands, where it is hoped that the technical matters will be resolved. There is thus less than a year for the different positions to reach some kind of compromise.
• For more information on the UN agreement on the Climate and the conclusions document of the Bonn Summit, please visit http://cop5.unfccc.de
• The Catalan association, Grupo de Científicos y Técnicos por un Futuro no Nuclear has inaugurated a Web Site which offers a wide range of resources on energy production and political and social initiatives relating to climate change.
See  http://www.energiasostenible.org
 

Living Pyrenees

In September, the Ministry of the Environment of the Catalan Autonomous Government signed a collaboration agreement with the Mig Pallars Forestry Defense Group (Agrupación de Defensa Forestal, ADF) to initiate the Pirineos Vivos or Living Pyrenees project, cofinanced by the LIFE programme of the European Union. The aim of Pirineos Vivos is to achieve a sustainable form of management of the seven high-mountain municipalities of the Pallars Sobirà district; a management which, as well as preserving and strengthening the panoramic value of the area, will contribute to boosting the local economy.
The project, run by the Mig Pallars ADF, is based on the involvement of all the social and economic partners, especially the local ones, in defining and carrying out formulae which will make it possible to combine didactic and tourist applications with the preservation of this singular forest area. The central action of the project consists of establishing a network of forestry reserves and some demonstration itineraries. A foundation will also be created to articulate sponsoring of monumental trees on the one hand and sponsoring of semi-natural forests by companies •
 Ecology of leisure
Informe sobre el desenvolupament humà 1999
Various authors. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Barcelona, 1999, 262 pages.

L'estat del món 1999
Brown, Lester R. [dir.]. Worldwatch Institute- UNESCO Centre of Catalunya, Barcelona, 1999, 257 pages.

Signes vitals 1999
Brown, Lester R. [et al..] Worldwatch Institute- UNESCO Centre of Catalonia, Barcelona, 1999, 195 pages.

The UNDP issued its first report on human development in 1990. It was an extensive study, which aimed to offer different reading matter on the planet's status indicators. With this new edition, not only is the project consolidated, but methods have been refined and the number of indicators has increased. The publication of the report was long-awaited, because before the figures that reach us every day on the favourable state of world economy and growth, it enables us to observe the great inequalities existing in the heart of the planet and how most of the world's population are left out in the cold when it comes to numerous advances that we in the developed countries take for granted. The IHD, or Index of Human Development, is an alternative to the GDP -Gross Domestic Product- or other more usual indices. Although the IHD is not the only thing worth mentioning from this report, nor is it the most important. A report, once again available in Catalan thanks to the ANUE -the Association for the United Nations in Catalonia, the UNESCO Chair of technology, sustainable development, imbalance and global change of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, UNESCO Centre of Catalonia and the Red Cross of Catalonia.
This report is well complemented by two other classic and long-awaited works. In this case, from a private foundation, the Worldwatch Institute. One is «L'estat del món» (the State of the World), which along with the usual overall view from its director, Lester R. Brown -on this occasion in collaboration with Christopher Flavin and dedicated to «Una nova economia per a un nou segle» (A New Economy for New Century)-, it includes new chapters: a new energy system, economy of materials, products of the forest, the oceans, plant biodiversity, food for the world's population, cities, violent conflicts and the forming of a sustainable society. All with numerous data and bibliographical references.
The second Worldwatch publication is «Signes Vitals» (Vital Signs), which offers according to its subtitle, «les tendències ambientals que configuren el nostre futur» (the environmental tendencies that shape our future). The different areas it covers are energy, the atmosphere, economy, means of transport, communications, social trends and the military aspect. The second part includes, amongst many others, data on genetically modified crops, resistance to herbicides, globalisation, corruption in government, unemployment or NGOs •

X.D.
El sistema català de reproducció
Cabré, Anna. Proa, Barcelona, 1999, 304 pages.

Catalonia is well known as a country with a very low birth rate. When Anna Cabré read Josep Antoni Vandellòs' book «Catalunya, poble decadent», (Catalonia, a population in decline) published in 1935, she decided to carry out research to prove that, from the second half of the last century, the birth rate in Catalonia had been high enough to maintain the population.
This book is based on the author's doctoral thesis and is the result of many years' work, to analyse not only how the Catalan population has evolved, but also the social, economic and cultural reasons that have influenced it. The author uses Henry's indicator as a base. Although the idea has spread that to maintain a population, the birth rate must be 2.1 children for every woman, Louis Henry showed that this is not the most important factor, but rather that the children must outlive the mother. This depends as much on fertility as it does on the drop in the mortality rate.
Using this as a reference, Ms Cabré reconstructs the demographic evolution of Catalonia between 1856 and 1960, a period which constitutes what the author calls «a hundred years of demographic singularity». Immigration has played an extremely important role in the country's demographic evolution, and one cannot say whether low fertility is, partly or wholly, the cause or the result of it or whether they have simply evolved side by side with no clear causal link. In addition, the figure of the heir has also influenced this evolution.
According to Ms Cabré, this Catalan system of reproduction will soon be a thing of the past, given the new order of things, on both the national and international front. Amongst the possible factors that help to maintain the country's population, Cabré considers that large-scale economic expansion could have considerable negative consequences, as, there was high price to pay for the sixties' boom in «environmental degradation, cultural destruction and denaturalisation of the country». However, the author admits she is glad to share this type of problems with other industrialised countries, rather than suffer those found in the rest of the world •

X.D.
 
 
 

Medio ambiente y desarrollo sostenible
Bifani, Paolo. IEPALA, Madrid, 1999, 593 pages.

In 1981, the Italian economist, Paolo Bifani, published, in three volumes, a book that has since undergone a series of revisions and updates. Now in its fourth edition, this work of reference has been brought right up to date. It is worth pointing out that the concepts he put forth in 1981 were valid and have required little re-working since then. They have simply been completed in view of new information regarding the environment and development and the considerable activity there has been since the mid-eighties: the Brundtland Report, the Rio de Janeiro Conference, the Montreal Protocol, the Convention on climatic change and the growing protagonism of environmental issues around the world.
The first part of the book has undergone the fewest changes, as it sets forth the principal economic theories and a view of growth and development. It is written in simple terms to make it understandable for people with no specialist knowledge of economics. The second part also varies very little, as it is an historical interpretation of the relationship between development and the environment.
On the other hand, the third part, on natural resources and population, has, logically, required the greatest revision. The large amounts of new data we now have available and the facts that exemplify, in several countries, the different topics covered made this essential. Using a great deal of information and interpretation, Bifani offers a real contrast to the theories analysed in the first section. An essential fact as most economists seem to work with ideal models, a far cry from the real situation in which most of the Earth's population finds itself.
This third part deals with the evolution of population, the concept of scarcity, food resources - which make up most of this section -, water and forest resources, marine ecosystems, biodiversity and mineral resources.
Thanks to its structure, clarity, rigour and up-to-date quality, for the large amount of information the author has processed and the concepts that have inspired the work, this is a work of reference for all those wishing to understand the relationship between economic structures, resources and development. The areas of science and technology, pollution and instruments and environmental policy measures will be dealt with in a second book. A complex view which, along with this one, will offer a complete vision of the relationship between the environment politics and the economy •

X.D.
 
 
 

Vegetació i zones bioclimàtiques del món
Walter, Heinrich. Promociones y Publicaciones Universitarias (PPU), Barcelona, 1998, 394 pages.

Born in Odessa in 1898, Heinrich Walter is one of the most illustrious names in ecology. This is one of his most emblematic works, published for the first time in 1970, the third edition of which went out of print in 1977. This is the second edition in Catalan, by another illustrious personage: Oriol de Bolós. The work expounds the role of climate and vegetation as essential components of ecological systems. After an overall view, the author devotes several chapters to what he calls zonobiomes, understood to mean homogeneous vital areas within a bio-geosphere. Walter describes nine, which include from the equatorial brown muds to the tundra. That is, from areas which are always green, with no variation throughout the year, to areas of tree-less vegetation, passing through all those places of different characteristics and seasonal variations. The book also contains a large number of graphs and appendices, a bibliography, an alphabetical index and a glossary. At the end of the book, Walter sets forth a few brief considerations regarding the future of humanity from an ecological point of view, and drawing attention to population growth and anthropogenetic alterations of natural balance. He concludes by pointing out that Man, despite his spiritual capacity, is also part of nature and cannot believe in unlimited scientific-technical development. Whoever sees things differently, according to Walter, is either blind to the laws of nature or completely indifferent. A case of «I'm all right, Jack!» •

X.D.
 
 
 

Informe sobre la informació ambiental. Mitjans de comunicació a Catalunya 1999
Environmental Information Group-Catalan Association of Scientific Information. Ministry of the Environment of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia, Barcelona, 1999, 98 pages.

This opuscule, drawn up by the EIG -of the CASI- in collaboration with the EISC -Environmental Information Study Centre of the Catalan Insititute of Technology-, is a compilation of data on who deals with environmental information in the media. The first part contains a list of information agencies, newspapers, radio and television stations, general interest magazines and specialist magazines. For each medium general data are given and an explanation of whether environmental news has its own section, what type of news items are highlighted and whether they are covered by specialist reporters. The second part contains an alphabetical list of journalists and another of media which highlights who is responsible for environmental news where such a person exists. This is a book that, apart from providing information on how to locate media and professionals, shows just how little importance is given still to this matter in our country, as most media lack specialised editors and the person in charge rarely devoted more than 20% of his time to the environment. Amongst some curious cases is that of the Barcelona of a newspaper with its headquarters in Madrid, has an editor who, in addition to environmental issues, also covers infrastructure and philosophy. A curious mixture •

X.D.
 
 
 

Medi ambient. Anuari d'entitats catalanes 1998
UNESCO Centre of Catalonia, Barcelona, 1999, 328 pages.

Another compilation, this time of entities dedicated to environmental issues in Catalan regions. The book does not merely give references, but also includes texts on the Assembly of Environmentalist Entities, the Life Project, the activities of the Civic Platform for the Reduction of Waste in Catalonia, the growth of tourism and land development in Majorca and the proliferation of wind power centres and the conservation of natural areas in Tarragona. For the nearly one hundred entities included, a file is given with its address, telephone number and E-mail, where applicable, objectives and a list of activities •

X.D.
 
 

La sostenibilitat, o el futur possible
«Idees» magazine, issue 2 (April-June 1999). Contemporary Issues Study Centre, Autonomous Government of Catalonia, Barcelona, 142 pages.

The second issue of this magazine which, according to its editor, Àngel Castiñeira, aims to be a tool for debate and reflection, contains a dossier of 33 pages on sustainability. With an introduction by Josep M. Camarasa, it includes an article by Josep Germain and Joandomènec Ros on biological diversity in Catalonia and another by Joan Rieradevall and Xavier Domènech on sustainable development in cities. Finally, Lluís Reales interviews Ramon Folch, who sets forth the concept of sustainability as a transformation of the current economic model into another which does not have growth as its basic aim and which internalises all the costs -including, of course, environmental and social costs - of productive procedures. •

X.D.
 
 

		Medi Ambient. Tecnologia i Cultura does not necessarily get identified  with the opinions expresseded in the signed articles
©  Departament de Medi Ambient de la Generalitat de Catalunya DL: B-44071-91 ISSN:  1130-4022