Hydrological collapse in southern Spain under expanding irrigated agriculture: Meteorological, hydrological, and structural drought

Abstract

Spain is the largest producer of avocado and mango fruits in Europe. The majority of production is concentrated in the Axarqu\'ia region in the south, where subtropical fruit plantations and associated water demands have steadily increased over the last two decades. Between 2019-2024, the region underwent an extreme water crisis. Reservoir reserves became nearly depleted and groundwater levels dropped to sea level in several locations, where seawater intrusion is likely, causing large socioeconomic impacts including short-term harvest losses and a long-term loss in economic centrality. We examine the causal pathway that led to this crisis using a mixed-methods approach, combining data from key informant interviews, an exhaustive review of legal documents, and quantitative analysis of time series and spatially explicit data. In particular, we analyze dam water use for irrigation and urban use, meteorological data, reservoir and groundwater levels, and irrigation land cover maps. Our findings show that an unusual meteorological drought was the immediate cause for the decline in reservoir and groundwater reserves (hydrological drought), but the underlying cause was a chronic and structural long-term imbalance between water demand and resources resulting from several structural governance shortcomings: large uncertainties in water resource availability and use hampering effective planning, lack of enforcement of individual water quotas, and the absence of regulatory mechanisms to flexibly impose resource use restrictions at both micro and macro levels based on the overall resources of the system. We propose concrete policy interventions aimed at sustainably enhancing the resilience of the system that can be useful to efficiently manage water shortages in other regions with similar problems.