Monday, October 13, 2008 : 9:10 a.m.

An Interdisciplinary Assessment of Ground Water Mining in Crevillente, Spain

Pedro Martínez-Santos1, Jose Miguel Andreu2, Concha Bru2, M. Ramón Llamas3, Antonio Pulido-Bosch4 and Lucia De Stefano1, (1)Universidad Complutense de Madrid, (2)Universidad de Alicante, (3)Royal Academy of Sciences of Spain, (4)Universidad de Almeria

Over the last decades intensive groundwater-based irrigation has become widespread in arid and semiarid regions worldwide, largely due to the reliability of groundwater resources during droughts and to the availability of the resource on demand. Most of this development has been uncontrolled, giving rise to unwanted social and environmental effects. Such effects have become particularly relevant in the case of non-renewable groundwater resources. The Crevillente aquifer, Spain, provides a stark example of the above, showcasing extreme instances of the most frequent trends in groundwater development, from intensive exploitation to transbasin conflicts. Crevillente is a small karstic unit (140km2) located in one of the driest areas of the Iberian peninsula. Groundwater plays a key role in the area’s agricultural practices (i.e. table grape irrigation), and thus has consistently been mined over the decades at a rate several times the recharge. Drawdowns in excess of 15m/yr have been observed since the 1980s, with the water table sometimes plummeting 30-40m within a single year. Water is now pumped from a depth of 400 to 500m. Intensive groundwater mining has not only depleted the aquifer but also led to compartimentation of the system. It has also degraded groundwater quality. Worse quality water resulted in a 50% decrease in crop profitability over the last few years. Farmers continue to pump despite a lower economic return and obvious sustainability concerns. This is largely because pumping costs are still affordable (0.30€/m3 – 0.45US$). Yet, social tensions have arisen since farmers demand water resources to be brought in from neighboring basins. This study presents a multidisciplinar perspective on the role of groundwater mining in the area, looking not only at the hydrogeological aspects, but also integrating social, economic and governance issues.

Pedro Martínez-Santos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid Dr. Martinez-Santos completed his Honours Bachelor of Civil Engineering (2000) and Masters of Technology Management (2002) at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, before undertaking his PhD studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, on the topic of groundwater resources management. He has worked on several projects funded by the European Union, the Spanish government and a number of private companies. These have focused mostly on groundwater modelling and management.

M. Ramón Llamas, Royal Academy of Sciences of Spain Emeritus Professor of Hydrogeology at the Complutense University of Madrid. Fellow of Spain’s Royal Academy of Sciences, where he chairs the Section of Natural Sciences and the International Relations Committee. .Author or co-author of one hundred books or monographs and almost two hundred scientific papers. President of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (1984-1989). Vice-president of the International Water Resources Association (2001-2003). Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (2004).


The NGWA International Conference on Nonrenewable Ground Water Resources — Sociotechnological Aspects of Nonrenewable Ground Water Resources: Half-Empty, Half-Full, Top-Down, Bottom-Up, and Some Paths Forward