BARCELONA

Drying out
Hospital Sant Pau: A large underground
water storage facility is being built here
Gabino Carballo
The devastating impact of drought on
the city of Barcelona
What would you think if your local water supply company
announced that there are less than two hundred days of water
supply available, and that most of the water available for
drinking consumption in the future would be shipped from
somewhere near the North of Africa, or else, recycled from the
nearest sewage treatment plant?

Gabino is a landscape architect,
a member of the Landscape
Institute, with several years
experience in the UK and Spain.
He has worked for companies
like Gillespies and Whitelaw
Turkington, as well as garden
designers like Christopher
Bradley-Hole and Arne Maynard.
In Barcelona. He has also
worked in various architectural,
engineering and landscape
projects and was solely
responsible for a memorial
garden for a Spanish politician
murdered by ETA, although he
usually works as part of a team
for larger projects.
T
his is pretty much the scenario
faced by the inhabitants of the
city of Barcelona right now.
To understand how such a large and
prominent city can find itself in such
a position, one needs to look at the
way water management has evolved
in recent years in this part of the
world.
For instance, Barcelona Parks
and Gardens Department has been
relocated to a new building located
in the busy heart of Gracia, one of
Barcelona’s best loved districts. We
have been re-positioned as a main
player within the new Environmental
Services Unit, which has been
designed to run all aspects of the
city’s infrastructure including
lighting, street maintenance, water
supply and now green spaces.
The street where the new office
building lies is called Torrent de
l’Olla, quite literally, Deep Pan
Creek. The fact that this creek, along
with many others, have become busy
streets, including the well known
Ramblas, speaks volumes about
the uneasy relationship between
Mediterranean cities and water which
is, more often than not, funnelled
straight to the sea.
An uneasy truce
It is worth noting, however, that the
neighbouring countryside has always
been careful not to waste water, to the
extent that water rights management
for irrigation is a tradition going
back centuries if not millennia on the
Mediterranean shores. The uneasy
truce between arid climate and
strong, concentrated precipitation
over a difficult terrain was maintained
by means of systematic usage

20 | GREEN PLACES | JUNE 2008

of simple but efficient irrigation
“The neighbouring

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systems, good usage of underground
water resources and crops suited to
precipitation levels.
The situation has changed
countryside has always
dramatically in the last few decades:
traditional farming methods have been careful not to waste
given way to intensive, irrigation
dependent crops grown on land
which is now under continuous
water and water rights
pressure from urban development and
industrial growth. management for irrigation
Development has brought about
the need for more complex and
ambitious water infrastructure, yet
is a tradition going back Below: jardi Drets Humans sustainable
it has not brought about a change
in the mindset of the engineer, the
centuries” drainage under construction

Bottom: jardins Ernest Lluch watering

architect or the developer. Rivers
and creeks are still being channelled
and funnelled towards the sea,
large swathes of the newly tamed
floodplains have become property
developments aimed at tourists and
investors. Large quantities of water
are being pumped from a dry part
of the country to even drier parts, to
meet the needs of an ever expanding
constellation of golf courses, tourist
resorts and residential complexes of
unparalleled scale. This is a scenario
that spells trouble.
Ironically, in one of the years with
the lowest rainfall levels since records
began, the hardest hit area has been
the city of Barcelona, which is one of
the most efficient cities in the world
in terms of water usage.
system driplines
level that has since been raised to the
highest emergency level earlier this
year.
In principle, this legislation does
not affect the normal activities of
business and industry, but it does have
a direct effect on the usage of certain
types of usable water sources, such
as drinking water, which is reserved
for human consumption. And it also
has a direct effect on the functioning
of ornamental fountains and the
irrigation of parks and gardens with
drinking water, which is forbidden.
The only sources of water for
irrigation allowed are underground
water and recycled water. Regrettably,

A series of unfortunate
events
Due to a combination of extreme
weather conditions, expansive
growth, lack of investment in
appropriate infrastructure and some
fairly cack-handed (un)political
decisions, the city is expected to
run out of water by October 2008,
unless the climatic situation changes
dramatically. Which is unlikely, since
this drought, and its effects have been
a long time coming. Procrastination
in this area will see Barcelona’s
drinking water being shipped by
tanker from a brand spanking new
water desalination plant located in...
Almeria, by far the driest part of
Spain.
Special emergency legislation was
put in place by the Catalan parliament
to regulate the usage of water in
2005. This was first implemented
in 2007, first at a basic emergency

JUNE 2008 | GREEN PLACES | 21

BARCELONA

“The built environment is

exclusively managed and
designed by engineers
and architects”
both types of water require special
and extensive infrastructure and
Barcelona currently lags behind what
would be an acceptable level of this
kind of water supply.
However, not every institution
involved has failed to perform
its duties with regards to water
management. The Park and Gardens
Department of Barcelona has
implemented for several years a set
of sustainable policies that inform
its operating procedures. Notably,
amongst them features a minimal
water consumption policy which
has led to the development of a
comprehensive set of practices and
procedures regulating irrigation
infrastructure in public parks and
gardens.

What about the public

spaces?
The first of these practices would be
the decision to irrigate every public
green space in the city by means
of fairly standardised automated
systems, which has seen the number
of public green spaces automatically
irrigated grow from almost zero to
hundreds a decade ago. The same
applies to the irrigation of street trees
and any other planting found in the
city of Barcelona.
The second would be the
publication in 1999 of a detailed
specification for the design and
construction of automated watering
systems to be implemented in the
city’s green spaces. This specification
is revised and updated regularly,
and it is aimed at contractors
and designers that wish to have
their work approved and adopted
for maintenance by the city. The
specification is very detailed and
prescriptive and the solutions
proposed are not high-tech: they are
sturdy and designed to safeguard
the watering system’s lifespan and
guarantee its on-going maintenance.
This specification has been recently
joined by a manual giving advice
on several aspects of the design and
implementation of watering systems.
Largely based on principles derived
from a document outlining irrigation
needs estimation in Mediterranean
climates A Guide to Estimating
Irrigation Water Needs of Landscape
Plantings in California, devised by
the San Francisco and San Mateo
County Office in cooperation with
several landscape professionals.
This paper is intended to provide
guidance to landscape professionals
when selecting plant material, while
taking into consideration water needs
and serves as a guide to assist in
developing irrigation schedules for
existing landscapes.
Plan of action
The third of these practices would be
the installation of a device that allows
a public space to swap from drinking
to underground water irrigation
in one simple operation, whilst

22 | GREEN PLACES | JUNE 2008

complying with regulations. Since the

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development of the supply network
for this type of water is happening at
a painstakingly slow pace, it is not
unusual to find that some parks are
‘underground water’ ready, whilst the
network itself is still half a mile away.
A fourth practice is directly related
to the choice of planting species and
their maintenance, including lawns.
In recent years, it has been generally
accepted that completely green lawns
may not be entirely feasible in the
middle of the Mediterranean summer.
This has led to a number of in-house
experimental trials and research Main pic: Fira Barcelona
to establish which combination of
species is better suited to this latitude Top: Plaça Nova
and its water shortages, as well as to
Below: Moll De Fusta
a change in maintenance practices
which no longer guarantee the much
sought after ‘perfect green’ look. It is
rather a ‘patchy yellow’ one.
In spite of all this progress, it is
particularly painful to see that the
first victims of this drought are,
precisely, the parks and gardens of
Barcelona, new and old alike. Since
April 2008, drinking water irrigation
has been forbidden anywhere in the
city. Most parks lack a connection
to the underground water supply
network which means that, as Spring
time rains decline and temperatures
rise, vegetation will start to
experience severe hydric stress.
The situation is worrying because
it has been noticed that even
mediterranean species are having
difficulties coping with the sharp
variation in rainfall levels and
patterns. This could mean that large
swathes of city planting may be
obliterated over the next few months,
and with it, the character and qualities
of many public spaces.

“Due to a combination of
extreme weather conditions,
expansive growth and lack
of investment, Barcelona is
expected to run out of water
by October 2008”
JUNE 2008 | GREEN PLACES | 23

BARCELONA
Jardins Ernest Lluch watering system two valve bypass
Watering system secondary supply line
Jardi Drets Humans newly planted
24 | GREEN PLACES | JUNE 2008
“Rivers and creeks are
still being channelled and
funnelled towards the sea
and large swathes of the
newly tamed floodplains
have become property
developments”
Remedial operations such as
watering from tankers have very
limited impact over large expanses of
green space and their environmental
impact is huge. The truth is that the
situation is both critical and ironic:
that the one area where the city has
made more progress in recent years
to curtail the excessive consumption
of water resources, is the first to be
sacrificed.
What’s needed now
As one of the very few qualified
landscape architects working in
the public sector in this country,
I cannot fail to notice that despite
all the celebrated brouhaha about
contemporary Spanish landscape
design, the built environment is
exclusively managed and designed
by engineers and architects. These
two types of professionals are behind
every single development in the built
environment, often to the exclusion
of any other. What their fair share of
responsibility in the current situation
is, is not for me to say.
What I can say is that a group of
professionals with the environment
at the core of their practice would
have advised the powers that be in
a more insightful way and possibly
recommended preemptive action at a
much earlier stage. Perhaps landscape
architects may have been those
professionals, were they allowed
to practice and work in the same
conditions as the aforementioned
professionals.
As for the likely outcome of
this sorry tale, it is certain that the
water supply will be guaranteed
until October, when a new water
pipe supply from the Ebro River
will be in place to supplement
existing sources of water. Interesting
developments related to this situation
include the decision to use recycled
treated sewage water for human
consumption, which would have
been unthinkable six months ago,
and a major push for greater water
sourcing and consumption control in
the metropolitan area of Barcelona.
Every crisis and disaster bring new
opportunities and understanding to
society. Let’s hope that the lessons
from this one will be learnt for the
future.