Thirsty Europe: A View from Catalonia - 2023 - Photography, Video & Sound

As a result of climate change, droughts are on the rise in Europe and local and national governments are preparing for increasingly dry years. The Mediterranean regions are all particularly affected. In 2023 the region suffered it’s worst drought since 1914. Reservoirs were at their lowest or totally dried up. The government tightened water usage restrictions and declared a state of emergency due to water shortages. These measures affected six million people.

How is Catalonia coping with these issues? Catalonia needs to prepare and has been preparing for it’s new scenario of less rainfall and hotter temperatures and is at the forefront of many drought research and technological projects in both forestry and agriculture. After all, it is the most forested region of the European Union in the Mediterranean with 64% of it’s surface covered by forests. The other 25% has agriculture. Thus a total of 93% of Catalonia’s surface has either forests or agriculture. Both need water.

In the forest sector a twelve-year study has been monitoring the effects of drought on forests. Another study recently started analyzing how carrying out sustainable forest management techniques in the mountain basins can improve the water status of the basins, which would translate into greater flows of water in the rivers and therefore better and healthier Mediterranean forests. Another project monitored the effects of forest management combined with livestock studying not only soil fertility and moisture, but also taking into account fire risk, the vitality and growth of the forest and the generation of pasture.

In the agricultural fields a sophisticated algorithm system for drip irrigation created 12 years ago for apple orchards reduces water usage considrably. A winery in one of the most dry and arid region has started using drip irrigation also.

However the irrigation communities and water keepers have had to ration water distribution, never seen before, in some regions such as the Canal d’Urgel in Western Catalonia, resulting in farmers either growing less crops or changing to less water intensive crops such as sunflowers or in some extreme instances having to find themselves throwing away the fruits produced in fruit orchards to simply save the trees.

Should a country with water resource problems be growing water intensive crops or should it be concentrating on growing dry crops? Should we be tearing down dams and letting the rivers flow freely with their natural “heartbeat? Would the rivers know how to tackle climate change better than humans? Some experts are already saying that in some scenarios these may be the solutions. All these questions remain to be answered and if put into practice would mean a revolutionary change of the present order of things.

This photography project has centered on highlighting some of the issues and solutions in Catalonia and is part of a larger cross border investigative story with written reports from South Tyrol (Italy), Sicily (Italy), and Andalusia/Algarve (Spain/Portugal) developed with the support of Journalism Fund Europe with a EU Cross Border Investigative Journalism Grant and enormous gratitude for final photo editing assistance by Sarah Leen.