Where is the water we use everyday comes from? I always ask myself this question. Water is the essential part for human as well as the ecosystem. But as the population and the scale of the cities grow, we are consuming more water than before.
The traditional water resources in Catalunya are rivers, aquifers and reservoirs. In the first part, I visualized the water consumption for each comarca. The water consumption is divided into two parts based on two purpose: domestic network, economic activities and own resources.
One of the most important water resources is river. In the second part, I showed the annual river system contribution, and the drought condition (using soil water content of 60m depth) of each comarca. The high density coastline area also have high drought condition.
Although Catalunya has high density of river network, a lot of area need water from these rivers as well. This could cause water supply stress, especially the hot summers.
Based on TOGETHERFORWATER, Barcelona has 26 times less water available than Paris (and about 300 times less than Vienna). In Catalunya, we have limited water, so we must manage it carefully.
Sources:
- Tomislav Hengl, & Surya Gupta. (2019). Soil water content (volumetric %) for 33kPa and 1500kPa suctions predicted at 6 standard depths (0, 10, 30, 60, 100 and 200 cm) at 250 m resolution (Version v01) [Data set]. Zenodo. 10.5281/zenodo.2629589
- Fluvial systems. Annual contribution from Statistical Institute of Catalonia
- Water consumption in Catalonia by region from Open data initiative of the Government of Spain: https://datos.gob.es/
