Just deserts

By Ian Clover

Sun, sea, sangria and sand. Too much sand. As desertification continues to be a problem for southern Spain, Ian Clover investigates what can be done to halt the march of the desert.

“In the EU alone, soil holds 70 billion tonnes of carbon, which equates to seven percent of the world's entire carbon storage.”

Squint and it almost doesn't look real. The distant craggy horizon rises and falls like an overwrought ECG needle. Azure, cloud-free skies proffer zero protection from the relentless burn of the scorching sun. Green tufts of hardy vegetation poke optimistically through the ground, standing lonely on vast plains of red and dusty rocks as tumbleweed - actual tumbleweed - sits idly by, the non-existent breeze rendering their only purpose obsolete. Everything is still. Everything is parched. And everything is quiet.

Yet this isn't the wild west of 19^th Century USA; this is the vast Tabernas Desert of 21^st century southeastern Spain. The busy airport of Alicante is just over an hour away, easyJetting in millions of northern European tourists every summer for sunshine frolics and fun. A total of 54 golf courses can be found within a 100km radius of here, and the intense climate has made this corner of Iberia Europe's leading grower of fruit and vegetable - the 'Costa del Plastico' an affectionate moniker given to a strip of coastline blanketed by row upon row of plastic greenhouses growing lettuce, tomato, almonds, figs and all manner of fruits; primed, picked then packaged up and shipped off to a supermarket near you.

The human demand for water in this region of Spain is intense. Golf courses soak up water like a yawning hippo, hotels and holiday developments boast huge swimming pools and perfectly green lawns and gardens, and the agriculture industry demands intense irrigation in order to match Europe's hunger for affordable fruit and veg all year round (88 percent or all water used in southern Spain goes on agriculture). Ostensibly, this is a thriving corner of a country hit hard by the economic downturn. Business is booming, tourism is steady and golf spend is a sustainable, year-round source of income. Yet the fact remains: this is a semi-arid landscape, and human activity is only speeding up the inevitable process of desertification.

Wild West

The Tabernas Desert's unique landscape has been eyed-up by Hollywood movie producers for decades. Some of the most iconic wild west backdrops ever committed to film were shot not in the Nevada Badlands or Arizona desert, but in Franco's Spain: lower-production costs made it a simple and accessible location for actors, directors and producers. Classics such as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars, The Magnificent Seven, Johnny Yuma and even parts of the original Lawrence of Arabia were shot at the Texas Hollywood studios here.

Tourists can even visit these film sets today, wandering through a complete replica of an old America west town complete with saloon, bank, jail, shops and stables. It's a strange experience - being able to stroll through what one believes to be the unmistakable landscape of America's mid-west, yet being only an hour's drive away from Mediterranean resorts clambering over themselves to offer the lowest-priced lager-with-full-English-Breakfast combos by the beach.

This quasi-Saharan landscape has been this way for thousands of years. The Sahara itself is a mere 400km due south, and the climate of Murcia province and Almeria is the driest in Europe (average rainfall in the Cabo de Gata-Nijar Natural Park is just 12 centimetres per year, compared to an average of 80 centimetres in Manchester, England), and the hottest too - temperatures surge past 40c on a daily basis between June and August. However, United Nations estimates warn there will be a 40 percent reduction in rainfall by 2070, with statistics to show that, since 1880, the global surface temperature increase is 0.8c, while in Spain that figure is 1.5c. Such dramatic climate change can only mean one thing - the desert is returning to reclaim its land.

So how to combat it? Three experts: one on soil, one on vegetation, and one on water provision, give their opinion on what can be done to halt the sand's march across the parched landscapes of southeastern Spain.

Soil salvation

Studies by the United Nations Centre to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) have shown that six percent of Spain's arable land has already been lost forever, and the Spanish Environment Ministry estimates that one-third of the country's 500,000 square kilometres is at 'significant risk' of desertification, with the resorts and cities of Almeria, Alicante and Murcia most at risk, their situation exacerbated by human activity that has upset the delicate soil-water relationship of the land. "Desertification has strong human components, so humans have the capacity to halt the process," says Jose Luis Rubio, President of the European Society for Soil Conservation. "Societies in Spain do not always realise that soil is the base of the ecosystem. If air is polluted you cannot breathe it; if water is contaminated you cannot drink it; and if soil is tainted then we lose it, and if we lose soil, we lose everything.

Rubio has studied the effects of soil erosion on Spain's landscape for decades and believes that, while desertification will always be something of a concern for southeastern Spain, better management of resources can help halt the desert's creeping advance. "When soil is damaged through human activity, it becomes deeply degraded and can be easily washed away, which means there can be no vegetation cover, landscape, biodiversity - nothing. But the effect that concentrated human economic activity is having on the land can be avoided with a little more forward planning."

Faced with such intense demand for tourist provisions such as golf courses and swimming pools, in addition to the stripping of indigenous olive groves for a more water-intensive crop output, environmental authorities face an intense battle. "Agricultural restoration of the most affected parts of the southeast - Castilla, the Ebro Basin, Almeria, Alicante and Murcia - would help," says Rubio. "This can be achieved through better water management that protects against salinisation, tree planting, and restoration of land gradation after forest fires, which destroy 1000 hectares of land every summer, stripping the vegetation cover and removing all nutrients from the soil."

Poor town planning has exacerbated the situation in some towns, believes Rubio. "Inadequate planning of buildings and infrastructure works in tandem with the torrential rains that hit this part of the country to affect the stability of the soil and inhibit its ability to hold organic matter. This looseness in the soil leaves it with less buffer capacity to resist extreme climactic events - a situation that is made worse by civil works such as roads cutting off the natural pattern of rainfall runoff."

Soil should not be treated so lightly. Like the hard-pumping legs of a graceful swan, soil drives the earth's ecosystem almost unnoticed, yet it is the earth's living skin, holding everything together. In the EU alone, soil holds 70 billion tonnes of carbon, which equates to seven percent of the world's entire carbon storage. EU member states pump out two billion tonnes of carbon a year, so even something as little as a 0.1 percent loss of carbon from European soils is the equivalent of an extra 100 million cars on the road. With no soil, there is no life, and Spain had better act fast to hold on to what it has.

"Areas like Almeria are really quasi-desert," admits Rubio. "Desertification will always occur there to some extent, but the problem we are seeing is that other areas with better biological balances are beginning to experience desertification, which is happening in part because of climate change and in part because of socioeconomic pressures on the government to develop tourism, which has been tremendously important for the economic strength of Spain.

"In many cases, this all-too recent and rushed explosion in infrastructure has increased the pressure on the land, dismantling the capacity of the soil to control its natural filtration process and, in many cases, increasing the likelihood of, and damage caused by, landslides and torrential rain, which is a natural component of our climate." It is indeed a catch-22 situation - Spain needs tourists' money, tourists want the sunshine, warmth and year-round dryness that characterises this corner of the country, but the landscape? The landscape needs a rest.

Vegetation vitality

Or does it? Can careful agricultural planning, allied with determined soil conservation and better future infrastructural planning help slow the desertification process and salvage the lands of Almeria, Valencia, Alicante and Murcia for future generations to enjoy as we have for so long? Dr. Leopoldo Serrano is the General Director of Spain's Natural Environment and Forest Policy at the Ministry of the Environment, and believes that the level of vegetation cover in Spain's southeastern corner is no worse, or better, than before. "In quantitative terms at least, vegetation cover and biodiversity remains the same. However, mismanagement and overexploitation has had a qualitative impact on the state of the vegetation, and this needs to be addressed."

Left to its own devices, the landscape does possess some recovery capacity, but Serrano is of the opinion that human intervention is required to nullify the damage caused by human activity. "The occupation of land for agricultural purposes -greenhouse agriculture in particular - has had a very drastic impact on the quality of the land. Urbanisation has been damaging too; it is a complex situation that cannot be solved by a simple policy of desertification control but via various programmes of land management and prevention of wildfire. Institutional and socioeconomic systems need to adapt to these threats if they are to be able to detect problems, react to them and, ultimately, improve the situation."

Serrano is an advisor for the UNCCD and has worked on various systemic integrated missions designed to lessen the human impact suffered by Spain's vegetation. "We look at land planning, at the water policy of the region and the use of other natural resources. There is enormous pressure on Spain's water resources but, largely, water distribution policies are good - the administration is correct and the knowledge is there. Quite simply, however, we need to look at a better system for land planning. More and more people are trying to live in the southeast region of Spain and the institutional system is more interested in local socioeconomic interests than general environmental concerns.

"Councils are pushing to promote developments and strip more vegetation, so who is fighting for the environment? The scale of this problem needs to be escalated - people need to get involved with their community and their neighbourhoods, pushing for better urban planning that takes environmental concerns into account." Drastic action is, believes Serrano, unnecessary: just a greater awareness from the councils, the land planners, the developers - and the general public - that the current system of infrastructural development needs to change before the country's desertification process goes beyond the point of no return.

Ironically, Spain's current economic malaise will likely prove beneficial for its landscape. The collapse of the construction industry has enabled local councils and planners to take stock of what they have, what they need and what can be improved. The agricultural industry - so thirsty for water - has slowed as Europe-wide demand has fallen. "Everything is less intensive at the moment," admits Serrano. "We have less intensive farming, less intensive building and no real growth. For some, this is a dilemma, but it will hopefully lead to a more considered approach to development in the future which will help the biodiversity of southeastern Spain."

Over the past few years as the construction industry has slowed down, the Spanish government has embarked upon the plantation of 45 million trees throughout the Mediterranean east of the country at a cost of €90 million. This plan will not only help to hold the soil and its nutrients in place but will also soak up an additional 3.5 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. By 2012 the plantation process will be complete. "The plantation of these millions of trees, correctly planned and executed, will prove extremely beneficial for the landscape," says Serrano. 

Water worries

There is little wriggle room for Spain's water authorities. The country receives 346 billion cubic metres of rainfall annually, leaving behind 109 billion cubic metres after evaporation and runoff. The annual water demand for the country is just 35 billion cubic metres, but the country is subjected to a number of stark climatic imbalances.

The green and lush lands of Galicia and Cantabria in the north and north west of the country are some of Europe's wettest regions, while the driest region of the continent - Almeria - is in the extreme southeast of the country and ferociously thirsty for drinking and irrigation water. Getting this excess rainwater from northwest to southeast is no mean feat, encountering a multitude of physical, infrastructural and political hurdles along the way before even a drop is diverted.

"The Iberian Peninsula is subjected to two very different climatic systems - a Mediterranean one, which has minimal and inherently irregular rainfall; and an Atlantic system, which is characterised by heavy and steady rainfall," explains Adrian Baltanas, Director General of water lobby group Asagua. "So these water shortages and droughts in the south and southeast are nothing new - the Roman Empire even built impressive hydraulic infrastructures to assure the water supply of its big cities, including the famous aqueducts of Segovia, Tarragona and Merida.

"This 'water supply guarantee' has been a permanent worry in Spain, and so it has only been logical that irrigation methods have developed alongside the pace of Spanish society. However, the 20^th and 21^st centuries have brought with them enormous technical and economic advances at an unprecedented pace, of which water reservoirs and transportation have played an important part. Simply put, Spain's impressive growth in recent years would have been impossible without a steady supply of water. We now take advantage of 50 percent of all rainfall in Spain, which has allowed us to assure the needs of all cities and resorts in southern Spain. Without this, tourism, construction and intense agriculture could never have happened."

Spain's erratic and dispersed rainfall has resulted in a highly sophisticated water management and irrigation system. Despite this, between 30 and 60 percent of the country is at risk of some stages of desertification according to the UNCCD. Ambitious and innovative programs, such as the Water Framework Directive and the National Plan of Water Quality, are designed to assure more sustainable water management for Spain in the future, including ambitious programs of reutilisation and desalination. "In the Mediterranean littoral of Spain there is an effective desalination and reutilisation scheme that will be fully completed by 2015," says Baltanas. "This program will supply five million people with desalinated water and 75,000 hectares of agricultural irrigation, as well as 30 percent of purified water to be put to industrial and tourist use such as golf courses, for instance."

Ah yes, the golf courses of southern Spain. So ubiquitous and eye catching, alien visitors to areas around Marbella and Murcia might well deem this the true Garden of Eden. Lush lawns, fairways and greens dazzle like emeralds next to the scorched browns and yellows of Spain's true, unassisted Mediterranean landscape. Ecologists have estimated that a single 18-hole golf course in southern Spain consumes the same amount of water as a town with a population of 5000 inhabitants. Throw in the presence of thirsty crop farms (tomato farms are extremely prevalent in the sun-rich, rain-poor Murcia region) and you have a two-pronged assault on a resource that has been scant in the region long before rich folk began clubbing balls into holes for fun, or Europe began demanding seasonal fruit and veg all year round.

"There is pressure, of course, but these water management programs are necessary as we move towards a more sustainable future," says Baltanas. "In some ways, desalination, reutilisation and modernisation of water infrastructure can only be achieved if it is obviously necessary that something has to be done. And so, finance for these projects is assured by both the public and the private sector because if we are able to guarantee water supply for all of our tourists, all of our golfers and all of our farmers - which we are - then funding and continued development of sustainable water supply will remain and continue to evolve.

"Tourism is an incredibly important sector for Spain's economy, so it is only logical that we have invested in, and will continue working on, programs that will ensure we remain a world leader in this field."

Striking a balance

Despite the lack of rainfall in southeastern Spain, Baltanas is confident that a steady water supply for tourists and agriculture can be maintained, but does this not exacerbate the problems outlined by Dr. Serrano and Jose Luis Rubio? If the tourists keep on coming, will the land not continue to suffer, despite the fact that water is being managed effectively and efficiently?

"The additional resources provided by the reutilisation and desalination of water we assure will allow for the execution of other programs that will help to fight the onset of desertification," assures Baltanas. The Spanish government and its Autonomous Communities are fully compromised by their strategies on sustainable management of their resources. They have begun implementing a number of measures designed to raise awareness among the general public about the importance of water, soil and vegetation to their country's fragile landscape. "The Spanish are some of the most efficient water users in Europe already. Consumptions per capita are among the lowest in the EU. Awareness is already excellent," says Baltanas.

It would appear that the general public is empowered and encouraged to do its bit, and the current economic downturn has come at an opportune time for the landscape - construction has ceased, roads are less busy and demand on agriculture has eased off. "The process of natural reforestation, while an extremely long process, has already begun happening in a number of areas," says Dr. Serrano. "These fallow, quiet periods are helping the vegetation to recover some of its natural habitat, particularly in more mountainous areas. However, we have to understand that in some ways Spain's recent socioeconomic development has actually been beneficial for the environment because we no longer have farmers surviving on the land by herding goats that eat and destroy everything in their sight. Moving away from this exploitative farming has not only been the mark of Spain becoming part of a developed Europe, but has, in some places, been beneficial for the landscape."

Spain's socioeconomic shift from simple farming techniques to large scale tourism and specialised agricultural produce may indeed have helped the landscape in some ways, but as Rubio points out, if future land and urban planning is poorly implemented, desertification will continue to worsen. "The UNCCD's actions for Spain - which include a national program to combat desertification, have been delayed and underfunded since initial plans were first drawn up in 2006," reveals Rubio. "It is my opinion that there have been nowhere near enough economic resources applied to confronting the desertification problem in Spain, but there is hope that the European Union will soon agree upon a common strategy to help deal with the problem, because we are able to show evidence that positive human intervention can help.

"Little by little we are seeing a better understanding of the interrelationship between the terrestrial ecosystem and human impact, and a greater awareness that we need to take care of the whole system." If this means more considered urban planning, artificial reforestation and better water management, then so be it. Deserts might well be romantic, evocative and exotic landscapes, but only when viewed in their correct context. A man-made, destructive desert that ruins the livelihood of millions is not good: just bad, and extremely ugly.

 

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Spain: Deserted.

Fully desert: Tabernas Desert (20 miles north of Almeria) spans 280 square kilometres and receives just 24 centimetres of rainfall per year. The desert is home to the Texas Hollywood, Mini Hollywood and Western Leone studios and provided the backdrop to some of the most memorable spaghetti westerns.

Semi-desert: Bardenas Reales (Navarre) covers 45,500 hectares and boasts a weird and wonderful landscape forged by millions of years of sun exposure, intense heat, scant rainfall and high winds.

Semi-desert: Cabo de Gata-Nijar Natural Park (Almeria) has the lowest rainfall in Europe, receiving just 12 centimetres annually. The stark landscape, hot weather and beautiful coastline made it a tourist favourite for decades, but human impact upon the landscape has seen the Spanish authorities take action to cut the number of visitors to the park.

At Risk: Alicante is an extremely popular resort that has been drawing package holidaymakers for decades. It suffers from extreme weather oscillations, not least in rainfall - average rainfall is 33 centimetres a year, but torrential downpours can bring as much as 20 centimetres in 24 hours. Such irregular weather leads to a mere 30-odd rainy days a year.

At Risk: Almeria city is the capital of the Almeria Province and has the warmest average temperature in the whole of Europe. While tourism is extremely important, it is the region's agriculture that most defines it - its greenhouse-covered valleys produce tonnes of fruit and vegetables, of which 70 percent is exported to the rest of Europe.

FAST FACT: The UNCCD says 12% of Europe is at risk of turning into desert.

FAST FACT: Summer 2005 was Spain's worst drought in 60 years. (source: UNCCD)

 

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Spain's Desalination

Europe's first ever desalination plant was built by Spain in the 1960s, and the country leads the Western world in its consumption of desalinated water. As a result, Spanish technology and innovation contributes to bringing clean and sustainable water to millions of people worldwide, including the Middle East and India.

At Carboneras in Almeria, southern Spain, the largest seawater desalination plant quietly hums its way through millions of gallons of seawater each day, chemically and physically filtrating it before reverse-osmosis membranes kick in and convert brine into fresh water. While the CO2 emissions of such a plant leave a lot to be desired, its effect on Spain's water supply has been worth it. A total of 20 desalination plants have been built throughout the country in the past six years, providing Spain with 50 percent of its entire water requirements.

What is desertification?

Desertification is the process of degradation of land in arid and semi-arid regions. This degradation can occur for a number of reasons, including climatic variations and the impact of human activities, such as overgrazing of livestock, river water diversion, overdrafting of groundwater, and increased water consumption caused by overpopulation.

Desertification reduces biodiversity in the soil, which inhibits its capacity to enrich vegetation, leading to increased scrub and soil erosion. Poorly planned roads and urban areas can affect natural runoff courses of rainfall, further exacerbating the situation.