Background and objectives

Law 10/2001, of July 5, of the National Hydrological Plan established in its art. 27 on drought management, the obligation to prepare Special Action Plans in situations of alert and eventual drought within the scope of its territorial frameworks.

Given this situation and coinciding with a prolonged drought, the Segura Hydrographic Confederation considered it essential to temporarily replace it with a Protocol for Action in Droughts of a temporary nature in which the exploitation systems and demand units sensitive to situations were identified of drought, the action thresholds will be determined and the measures to be adopted in the short term to address the solution of the problems raised will be defined.

The Special plan for alert situations and eventual drought (ESP) of the Segura basin , approved by Order MAM / 698/2007 , of March 21 , went one step further in improving the management of water resources during situations of scarcity in the basin and defined both the Organization of human and technical resources of the Confederation, its interrelation with users and the general public affected by these situations and both administrative and emergency structural actions (for the provision of extraordinary resources) and demand management.

DSince then and linked to the progress made in preparing two complete hydrological planning cycles in Spain, numerous areas for improvement have been identified over the special drought plans initially approved. In particular:

1. The advisability of having common criteria for the revision of the drought plans and for the adjustment of the system of indicators in the Spanish inter-community basins is confirmed, to avoid heterogeneity in the diagnosis and in the nature of the actions and measures to apply in different situations and river basin districts.
2. Taking into account that the DMA (article 4.6) indicates that the temporary deterioration of the state of the water bodies will not be an infringement if it is due to exceptional natural or force majeure causes or could not have been reasonably foreseen, such as droughts prolonged, it is necessary to diagnose, clearly and in a differentiated way, situations of prolonged drought and those of scarcity, since the actions and measures to be taken and the management capacity based on that diagnosis may also be different.

On the other hand, it is also required to establish a clear differentiation between drought and shortage situations, usually related phenomena, but of different origin and consequences, which require differentiated diagnoses, actions and measures, in turn following the guidelines that the European Union has been establishing about it.

For all these reasons, Royal Decree 1/2016, of January 8, which approves the revision of the hydrological plans of the inter-community river basin districts, in its first final provision establishes that without prejudice to the updates that have been have been carried out in order to review each hydrological plan, the special action plans in alert situations and eventual drought in the areas of inter-community river basin hydrological plans, must be reviewed before December 31, 2017, according to technical instructions that for this purpose, the Ministry for Ecological Transition (currently MITECO) dictates. Among the purposes of the aforementioned technical instructions, the need to establish hydrological indicators that separately diagnose drought situations and shortage situations is highlighted.

In compliance with the aforementioned Royal Decree, the General Water Directorate, working in coordination with the basin organizations, established the required general instructions and prepared the necessary methodological documents to carry out the review of the Special Drought Plans in a harmonized way , with the basic premises previously exposed.

In compliance with the aforementioned first additional provision of Royal Decree 1/2016, of January 8, which approves the revision of the hydrological plans of the inter-community river basin districts, the Segura Hydrographic Confederation drafted in 2017 a first version of this document that was published in the Official State Gazette of December 21, 2017 by the General Directorate of Water, who announced the opening of the period of consultation and public information of the “Proposal for a draft revision of the Special Plan for Droughts and its Document Strategic Environmental "corresponding to the hydrographic demarcations of the western Cantabrian, Guadalquivir, Ceuta, Melilla, Segura and Júcar, to the Spanish part of the eastern Cantabrian hydrographic demarcations within the scope of the State, Miño-Sil, Duero, Tajo, Guadiana , and Ebro.

By Resolution of April 23, 2018, from the General Directorate for Quality and Environmental and Natural Environment Assessment, a strategic environmental report was formulated on the Special Plan for action in situations of alert and eventual drought (PES) of the Hydrographic Demarcation of the Safe, published in the BOE of May 10, 2018.

After the completion of the public consultation process and the revision of the proposed draft revision of the Special Plan for Droughts after consideration of the proposals, observations and suggestions received, the revision of the Special Plan for Drought of the demarcation was drafted hydrographic office of the Segura, which was submitted to the approval of the Demarcation Water Council.

This plan was finally approved, following a report from the National Water Council, by Order TEC / 1399/2018, of November 28, which approves the revision of the special drought plans corresponding to the Cantabrian river basin districts. Occidental, Guadalquivir, Ceuta, Melilla, Segura and Júcar; to the Spanish part of the Miño-Sil, Duero, Tajo, Guadiana and Ebro river basins; and within the scope of the State's powers in the Spanish part of the eastern Cantabrian river basin district. Said Order was published in the Official Gazette of 12/26/2018, taking effect from the day following its publication.