Climate recovery plan in the metropolitan area of Murcia
Management Summary:
Current situation
- Water shortage in the summer : The Murcia metropolitan area suffers from extreme drought, minimal rainfall and high temperatures, which leads to the drying of the landscape.
- Extremes in winter : In winter, on the contrary, the incidence of extreme rains and flood risks increases due to the disrupted water cycle.
- Decline of small water cycles : Historical land degradation, deforestation, and stormwater drainage have caused small water cycles to empty and reduce summer rainfall.
- Rising temperatures : Since 1995, there has been a significant trend of rising temperatures (up to 2.3°C in the upper part of the basin), which contributes to overheating of the landscape and loss of vegetation.
- Intensification of greenhouse agriculture : The growth in the use of greenhouses further reduces water evaporation, deepens soil overheating, and prolongs drought periods.
- Urbanization and infrastructure : Paved surfaces in cities and transport infrastructure accelerate rainwater runoff, contributing to the risk of flooding and water loss from the area.
- Massive drainage : Long-term drainage of land since the Industrial Revolution has drastically reduced cloud formation and summer rain, which Millán Millán identifies as the main problem of land drying.
- Financial and environmental costs : Current water management solutions are extremely expensive (e.g. building reservoirs with foils) and do not support groundwater renewal or small water cycles.
- Threat of further drying : Without fundamental changes, the Iberian Peninsula risks gradually turning into a desert, with alternating extreme droughts and catastrophic floods.
Recommendations to stop the negative trend:
- Ecosystem-based rainwater retention : Implement nature-based solutions for water retention in forests, fields, pastures, urban areas, and hillsides.
- Restoring small water cycles : The goal is to return rainwater to ecosystems to promote evaporation, cloud formation, and increase the frequency of summer rains.
- Integrated rainwater management : A change from the classic sectoral approach to area-wide measures in landscape structures, without the need for massive investments in artificial reservoirs.
- Legislative and financial instruments : Create a legal framework to support regenerative water and soil management and introduce a system for financing ecosystem services.
- Research and monitoring : Implement long-term research programs to evaluate the effectiveness of measures in the areas of increasing water retention capacity, restoring fertility, and climate change effects.
- Investment plan : Implement water retention measures for an estimated €300–400 million, with a return on investment estimated at 4 to 8 years due to increased production of CO2 credits and savings in agriculture.
- Regional and national implementation : The pilot solution in Murcia will be applied to the entire Iberian Peninsula, with the aim of halting desertification and restoring climate stability.
The Spanish metropolitan region of Murcia, with a cadastral area of 1,230 square kilometers, is located in the east of the country in the Segura River valley (a basin area of 19,525 square kilometers), which flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The share of the metropolitan region of Murcia in the entire Segura River basin is over 6%.
The structure of the country is dominated by agricultural land, which suffers from water shortages, especially in the summer half of the year. Like all areas and basins of Spain. The basin is dominated by agriculture, which is dependent on an abundance of water. During the rainy season (winter half of the year), rainwater quickly drains from the land and contributes to the flood risks of cities and towns in the river valleys.
In the dry season (summer half-year) it hardly rains. At that time the country suffers from a great lack of water. In the upper part of the basin, the most critical month is July. Throughout the basin, due to historical damage to the landscape, the landscape gradually dried up. Small water cycles gradually emptied, it stopped raining.
In terms of long-term trends in the winter half of the year, monthly totals are increasing and trending upwards. Year after year, extremes are increasing and the risks of torrential rains and subsequent floods are increasing. This is confirmed by the flood disaster of October 29, 2024 in the neighboring basin of Valencia. For this reason, we have made a framework analysis of the state of land damage in the cadastre of the city of Murcia in order to understand the principles of land damage.
In the forest landscape, deep erosion grooves confirm the often dramatic runoff of rainwater from drainage areas, which accumulates in valleys and causes flood risks.
If you want to read whole analysis and proposed solution download it here:
(For PDF password reach us on email.)