title: Groundwater intensive use and mining in south-eastern peninsular Spain: Hydrogeological, economic and social aspects.
abstract: Intensive groundwater development is a common circumstance in semiarid and arid areas. Often abstraction exceeds recharge, thus continuously depleting reserves. There is groundwater mining when the recovery of aquifer reserves needs more than 50years. The MASE project has been carried out to compile what is known about Spain and specifically about the south-eastern Iberian Peninsula and the Canary Islands. The objective was the synthetic analysis of available data on the hydrological, economic, managerial, social, and ethical aspects of groundwater mining. Since the mid-20th century, intensive use of groundwater in south-eastern Spain allowed extending and securing the areas with traditional surface water irrigation of cash crops and their extension to former dry lands, taking advantage of good soils and climate. This fostered a huge economic and social development. Intensive agriculture is a main activity, although tourism plays currently an increasing economic role in the coasts. Many aquifers are relatively high yielding small carbonate units where the total groundwater level drawdown may currently exceed 300m. Groundwater storage depletion is estimated about 15km(3). This volume is close to the total contribution of the Tagus-Segura water transfer, but without large investments paid for with public funds. Seawater desalination complements urban supply and part of cash crop cultivation. Reclaimed urban waste water is used for irrigation. Groundwater mining produces benefits but associated to sometimes serious economic, administrative, legal and environmental problems. The use of an exhaustible vital resource raises ethical concerns. It cannot continue under the current legal conditions. A progressive change of water use paradigm is the way out, but this is not in the mind of most water managers and politicians. The positive and negative results observed in south-eastern Spain may help to analyse other areas under similar hydrogeological conditions in a less advanced stage of water use evolution.
authors.affiliation: Real Academia de Ciencias de España and Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC), Gran Capitán s/n, Ed. D2, 08034 Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: emilio.custodio@upc.edu.
authors.forename: Emilio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Custodio
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Alicante (UA), Carretera de San Vicente del Raspeig s/n, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain. Electronic address: andreu.rodes@ua.es.
authors.forename: José Miguel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Andreu-Rodes
authors.affiliation: Instituto Geológico y Minero de España (IGME), Avda. Miguel de Cervantes 45, 5° A. Edificio Expo Murcia, 30009 Murcia, Spain. Electronic address: r.aragon@igme.es.
authors.forename: Ramón
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Aragón
authors.affiliation: Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar (CHJ), Avenida Blasco Ibáñez 48, 46010, Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: teodoro.estrela@chj.es.
authors.forename: Teodoro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Estrela
authors.affiliation: Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar (CHJ), Avenida Blasco Ibáñez 48, 46010, Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: jferrer@chj.es.
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ferrer
authors.affiliation: Instituto Geológico y Minero de España (IGME), Avda. Miguel de Cervantes 45, 5° A. Edificio Expo Murcia, 30009 Murcia, Spain; Instituto Geológico y Minero de España and Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Murcia (UM), Campus Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain. Electronic address: j.arostegui@igme.es.
authors.forename: José Luis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: García-Aróstegui
authors.affiliation: Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (UPCT), P° de Alfonso XIII 52, 30203 Cartagena, Spain. Electronic address: marisol.manzano@upct.es.
authors.forename: Marisol
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Manzano
authors.affiliation: Diputación de Alicante, Avda. de la Estación 6, 03005 Alicante, Spain. Electronic address: lrodrigu@dip-alicante.es.
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Hernández
authors.affiliation: Real Academia de Ciencias de España and Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (UPV), Camino de Vera s/n, 46071 Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: asahuq@hma.upv.es.
authors.forename: Andrés
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sahuquillo
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Alcalá de Henares (UAH), Plaza de la Victoria 2, 28802 Alcalá de Henares, Spain. Electronic address: alberto.delvillar@uah.es.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Del Villar
keywords: Governance; Groundwater mining; Hydrogeology; Intensive exploitation; Reserve depletion; Socio-economy; South-eastern Spain