Despite summer being over, the threat of drought still looms in much of Spain, and so Elche is one of the first municipalities to plan for an event which they hope won’t happen, as part of a ruling that forces municipalities of more than 20,000 inhabitants to come up with an emergency plan, approved in national legislation in July.
The Emergency Plan (PEM) for drought situations in Elche aims to define the management measures that allow anticipating phenomena of resource scarcity in order to mitigate their frequencies and intensities and, at the same time, try to minimise the negative effects of socioeconomic, environmental type, etc., while these extreme situations persist.
The Plan includes a description of the supply system, available resources and demand, as well as an analysis of the areas and circumstances of greatest risk. The Plan includes the rules of normal supply operation, as well as the scenarios and indicators of short-term shortages with the measures and actions for each possible scenario. The document includes a section related to water quality, an analysis of the coherence of the Emergency Plan and the mechanisms for its public dissemination, monitoring and updating.
The Emergency Plan for drought situations has been drawn up by the Aigües d’Elx mixed company and with the approval of the municipal technicians and the recommendation of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation, which reported that the PEM collects practically all the indicated information in the Special Drought Plan and with a sufficient degree of detail for its application, being the same consistent with what is established in the PEM of the MCT (Mancomunidad de Canales del Taibilla).
According to sources from the joint venture, Aigües d’Elx, the Drought Emergency Plan will make it possible to define the states of risk of scarcity linked to droughts in its own system and establish responsibilities in decision-making and in the way of managing the different situations possible drought.
We are currently in a situation without risk of shortages, however, measures aimed at monitoring the control of networks continue to be prioritized to avoid losses and encourage responsible use by citizens and companies.
