The reservoirs in the province of Granada could do with some decent rainfall. Whilst they’re not in danger of drying up, they are at a 5-year low.

Hardly surprising really, because it was a dry autumn and coming up to a month into winter it still hasn’t rained anywhere near enough.

Granada has five main reservoirs: Rules, San Clemente, Negratín and Los Bermejales, of which Negratín is the biggest. There are six smaller ones in addition to the previously mentioned ones.

The Environment Ministry uses a system that takes into account water stored, population and irrigation use for each reservoir. By juggling the three factors they come up with three alert levels: three years of reserves, two years of reserves and the emergency status when there is only enough water for one year.

Compared with the rest of Andalucia, Granada is not doing too badly with its total capacity for the eleven reservoirs standing at 55%.

The Confederación Hidrográfica del Guadalquivir (Southern Water Board) considers that there is no reason to be alarmed: “It’s too early to speak of concern much less of a drought. There have been dry autumns before but followed by wet winters, which is what we hope will be the case for 2016,” reassures the CHG spokesperson.

The nearest reservoir to the city of Granada, San Clemente is gasping, on the other hand, because it’s only 16% full – it has a capacity of 118 hectometres but the present content is only 19.

They’re not worried, though, because the vega that surrounds the city has a pretty generous water table beneath it. However, one thing is having this secondary reserve and quite another the cost of pumping it out of the ground.

Anyway, having published this, it will probably pour down tomorrow and you won’t be able to park because of bloody arks bobbing about all over the place.

(News: Granada, Andalucia)