Irrigators reclamate a new National Hydrological Plan

In a context of climate change, where the availability of water is becoming less, the more than one million farmers who have an appointment at the XIV edition of the National Congress of Irrigating Communities concluded that this resource is a matter of State and therefore , to demand an integrating and long-term political action, which has as objective a new National Hydrological Plan able to guarantee the demand of the users.

They defend water as a matter of state and demand firm political action to have guaranteed water.

In this way, having as a target the objective of sustainable development of water availability and efficient management, irrigators rely on a water model that makes possible the consequences of the different basin aircraft in force and in which they include the corresponding regulatory works, as long as they are logically sustainable in environmental, economic and social terms.

In this sense, the additional comments at the time not only guarantee the water in the time of the drought and avoid that the damages caused by the floods are necessary. optimal performance.

In addition, in a hyperconnected world like the one we live in, we consider it essential to move towards an Integrated Water System where all the resources – both surface (reservoirs, desalination, reused water …) and underground (aquifers) – aligned with the different demands.

Precisely, in order to properly manage this integrated water system, demand a reordering of the public sector to enhance the functioning of the hydrographic confederations and their dependence on the Central Administration.

Raise European funds for modernization

In addition to the role of regulatory works in a climate change environment, the need to increase public financing for modernization was another of the major topics of discussion of this meeting held in Alicante. In this sense, irrigators concluded that 2018 is a good time to raise the European funds (EAFRD) programmed for the modernization of irrigation in all Rural Rural Development Plans the national.

Specifically, it concludes that these funds must distribute more equitably to compensate the investments made by the irrigators, regardless of the autonomous community in which the modernization project is executed.

In this sense, after analyzing the formula set in motion in Castilla y León, where the financial effort of the Ministry of Agriculture – managed through the State Agricultural Infrastructure Corporation (SEIASA) – is supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of the Board, the irrigators consider that it is time to follow this example and apply the same criteria of financing throughout the national territory to tend towards more favorable formulas for users.

The leap to electronic administration

Finally, the third theme addressed in the Congress was water governance. As they modernize their irrigation systems, irrigators are aware that they must also face a transformation of their administrative management systems to adapt to the new digital environment according to the particularities of each irrigation community in order to minimize the obligations of the of smaller size and, therefore, fewer resources.

On the other hand, the communities of irrigators will promote the necessary initiatives for the fulfillment of the legislative novelties related to the new Law of Contracts of the Public Sector, the Law of Transparency and the new European Regulation of Protection of Data.

The National Congress of Irrigators Communities has its origin in 1914 in the National Irrigation Congresses, which were born with the aim of creating a permanent organism dedicated to the execution of public works that favored a better use of the waters. These meetings, interrupted as a result of the Spanish Civil War, resumed in 1964 with the celebration of the First National Congress of Irrigators’ Communities in Valencia. Since then and to date, a total of fourteen congresses have been held in the cities of Valencia, Seville (2), León, Murcia, Zaragoza (2), Granada, Badajoz, Castellón, Palma de Mallorca, Tarragona, Huelva and Torrevieja .

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➡️ The Minister inaugurates the National Congress of Irrigators with the presentation of the National Irrigation Strategy 2018 – 2025