An Exemple: Water Management in Spain
Thursday, 11. October 2007 | 14:30 Uhr
Speaker
Organisation
Reporting
Prof. Alberto Garrido, Technical University, Madrid outlines changing water supply in Spain. Farming uses 77% of available water. Artificial irrigation has been very common up until now because it is cheap and subsidized. Urbanization, climate change, drying up of rivers and droughts brought new challenges. Disputes about ground water broke out. Water became more expensive, for example in Valencia. In the year 2000, however, the period of large projects ended. Due to the change of government in 2004, the focus changed. The project of transferring water from the Ebro River in Barcelona to the South over a distance of 1000 km was not carried out. Demonstrations extended as far as Brussels. The new millennium led to reforms and liberalization. Farmers could sell their water rights at a high price. The non-sustainable, often illegal and over exploited use of water has been a chronic problem until today. Artificial irrigation was reformed. 1.2 million hectares of agricultural land was rehabilitated, at a cost of 3 billion euros. The following outlook can be given: total water costs are allocated to farmers because subsidies lead to conflicts with other production areas and consumers. Only productive and profitable crops are cultivated at the right place. Wheat has to be imported. Flexible and adjustable solutions are required because centrally oriented planning models collapse during political changes.Science and information (technology) are increasingly important. Adjustments are possible in economically and financially good times.
Alberto Garrido
Alberto Garrido completed his studies as an agricultural engineer in 1989 at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (U.P.M). 1992 he obtained a Master of Science in Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis and got his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the U.P.M in 1995.
In the following years, he worked at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute in Saragossa, at the University of California and as an assistant professor at the U.P.M. Afterwards he became researcher for the Water Policy and Law Group at the University of South Australia and visiting scholar at the University of California.
He worked as an adviser for the following projects: five OECD projects in Paris from 1997 until 2006, three projects of the Inter-American Development Bank from 1997 until 2003, for the European Parliament in 2001 and three projects of the European Commission from 1994 until 2005. In the years from 2002 to 2006, he worked for the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Spanish Parliament; 2002/03 he worked in projects of the autonomous regions Aragon und Navarre, for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in 2003 and for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) from 1998 until 2005.
Alberto Garrido has been associate professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences of the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Agrónomos at U.P.M since 1998.
