2. Environmental sustainability
This chapter presents Spain’s policy priorities on agriculture and the environment and outlines the main agri-environmental policies and regulations at national and regional levels. It examines trends and assesses the current situation in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water, nutrient balances and ammonia emissions, biodiversity, and soils. Water management is one of the main environmental challenges for Spain, with the agro-food sector accounting for over 80% of water use. Water pressures are aggravated by over-extraction in some regions, illegal groundwater pumping, and reduced availability due to droughts. This chapter examines the evolution of policies related to water and agriculture, and of their alignment with the OECD Council Recommendation on Water. Recent policy initiatives are discussed, including measures that aim to tackle GHG and ammonia emissions from farms, to prevent water pollution by nitrates and phosphates, and to modernise irrigation systems.
The right to an adequate environment and the obligation to preserve it are enshrined in the Spanish Constitution. Spain’s EU accession and its process of decentralisation have also shaped the evolution of agricultural and environmental policies and regulations.
Spain’s climate plan requires that agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are cut by 18% by 2030 with respect to 2005 levels. However, increases in livestock numbers and fertiliser use have resulted in a rise of GHG emissions since 2013. Ammonia emissions − 97% of which originate from agriculture − also began growing in the last decade, contributing to Spain’s incapacity to meet its national ammonia reduction targets. New policies and regulations, including the Strategic Plan (CSP) for the 2023-27 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Spanish Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (RTRP) aim to tackle the problems and help achieve the emission targets.
Water management is one of the main environmental challenges. Water use – of which over 80% is by agriculture – is one of the highest in the OECD. Over-extraction of water by irrigators in some regions – aggravated by illegal groundwater pumping – and recurrent reduced water availability, in part due to climate change, affect farmers, other water users and ecosystems. Diffuse pollution from agricultural activities, salinisation, flooding and droughts also affect the water resources.
Large investments to modernise and digitalise irrigation systems and monitor water use are in the pipeline. Previous irrigation plans have resulted in an increase in localised irrigation and a decrease in water use in 2000-18. At the same time, the irrigated area has expanded by 12% since 2011 (reaching almost 3.9 million hectares in 2021), water stress has not been reverted and there are questions on the effect of irrigation policies on water consumption.
Spain is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots and has the highest agricultural biodiversity in Europe. Yet, changes in agricultural habitats and water bodies threaten the diversity of birds and freshwater fish species and put pollinators and indigenous livestock breeds under pressure. In addition, Spanish soils are threatened by erosion, loss of organic matter and salinisation, which are associated with desertification and aggravated by agricultural practices such as conventional tillage and groundwater pumping. The voluntary eco-schemes included in the CSP seek to incentivise farmers to go beyond the CAP mandatory conditionality requirements by providing a payment for the implementation of practices that seek to improve agricultural biodiversity and soils.
The right to an adequate environment, and the obligation to preserve it, are enshrined in Article 45 of the 1978 Spanish Constitution. The Constitution also gives public authorities the duty to safeguard the rational use of all natural resources to protect and improve quality of life and preserve and restore the environment, and states that violations of this clause shall be subject to sanctions and to the obligation to repair the damage caused. Spain’s subsequent adoption and implementation of the EU environmental acquis and the transfer of environmental competences to the Autonomous Communities (ACs) have led to the development and consolidation of a significant body of legislation and jurisprudence in this area (García Giralda, 2011[1]). Competences in the environmental area are distributed among the different levels of administration according to Spain’s decentralised structure (Table 2.1).
2.1.1. General environmental policies and regulations
There is a complex set of rules and strategies for different environmental domains
Spain does not have a single national environmental law or strategy; there are numerous legislative instruments, plans and strategies related to specific environmental domains. This results in a complex set of rules at various levels of the administration. In 2015, the OECD noted that while EU policies have provided a unifying guidance for a multitude of strategies and programmes, transposition of EU directives has often been late or there has been a gap between transposition and implementation. The OECD suggested developing an Environmental Code to consolidate the numerous acts regulating separate areas (OECD, 2015[3]). The following sections of this chapter will cover the specific policies and regulations in the most relevant agri-environmental areas.
Spain was an early adopter of the concept of strategic environmental assessment
In Spain, strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of plans and programmes has been carried out since the 1990s. SEA procedures became obligatory after Spain transposed the EU SEA Directive (2001/42/EC) in 2006. The relevant national legislation (Law 21/2013) was last updated in 2018 to strengthen the role of SEA in the protection of Natura 2000 sites (Arce-Ruiz, Soria-Lara and González-Del-Campo, 2019[4]).
Public plans and programmes are subject to the SEA, while projects (either public or private) are subject to an environmental impact assessment (EIA). SEA is required for plans or programmes that, among other things, establish the framework for the future authorisation of projects legally subject to an EIA, or affect Natura 2000 sites. This includes plans and programmes in agriculture, farming and forestry.
The SEA can be carried out either at the national or at the regional level by the respective environmental authorities and according to the specific legal framework. All ACs have their own environmental assessment laws and procedures. For this reason, the implementation and effectiveness of environmental assessments differs across the regions, as does the number of assessment processes carried out. At the national level, Spain initiated 32 domestic SEA procedures between 2019 and 2021, including two in agriculture. One of them was for the new Strategic Plan (CSP) for the 2023-27 Common Agricultural Policy (Box 2.1). Four additional transboundary SEAs were initiated for the hydrological plans of the watersheds that Spain shares with Portugal, pursuant to the bilateral Albufeira Convention (UNECE, 2022[5]).
According to OECD recommendations and analysis, both ex ante impact assessment and ex post evaluation are key parts of evidence-based decision making. Ex post evaluation should be an integral and permanent part of the regulatory cycle. It helps to assess if laws are working as originally intended and, if not, to propose improvements. It is also an important check to ensure that laws are still justified and in the public interest; left unchecked, the stock of laws will continue to grow, creating unnecessary red tape for citizens and businesses (OECD, 2021[6]). Despite their importance, ex post reviews tend to be the “forgotten child” of regulatory policy (OECD, 2020[7]), and their use across OECD countries remains low.
Stakeholder inputs received in the SEA process helped shape the final version of the plan
The strategic environmental assessment of Spain’s CAP Strategic Plan (CSP) started in February 2020. The main authorities involved are the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA) as the promoter and substantive authority, and the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITERD) as the competent environmental body.
Key steps of the process include: consultations by the MITERD with concerned authorities (national and regional administrations) and other stakeholders (such as environmental NGOs) based on the initial CSP draft; the preparation by the MAPA of a strategic environmental study; and a public information process, through which the initial plan and the environmental study were made available to the public for comments. Following the consultation and information processes, the MAPA modified the strategic environmental study and prepared the final CSP proposal. These documents were sent to the MITERD, which examined the file and in December 2022 formulated a final strategic environmental declaration which includes, among others, a list of indicators to monitor the contribution of the plan’s measures (such as the eco-schemes) to achieve the CAP’s environmental objectives and Spain’s main environmental and climate policies.
One hundred and eighty observations were received in the consultations. Fifty-four were presented in the direct consultation process, mainly by ACs and national administrative bodies, and 126 were received in the public information process. Of these, 80 came from the private sector (farmers’ organisations and companies) and the rest from NGOs, research associations and the public. The largest number of observations (56) concerned the eco-schemes, followed by the rural development interventions (31). The main concerns expressed included: avoiding that farms that have been sanctioned for illegal water use receive CAP payments; guaranteeing that irrigation modernisation interventions effectively result in water savings; ensuring a sustainable use of agricultural inputs to avoid water pollution; improving carbon sequestration in agricultural soils and improving biodiversity. Numerous requests for training and advice to farmers in environmental and climate protection were also received.
The consultations and the environmental study helped shape the contents of the final CSP. For example, provisions were included in the eco-schemes, the coupled payments and some sectoral interventions to ensure that individuals or legal entities that have been sanctioned for illegal water use do not receive these payments. The irrigation modernisation interventions were also refined to include technical criteria for defining minimum potential water savings. Other changes include a revision of the indicators used for monitoring and evaluation, and adjustments to the financial plan.
Source: Information provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA); Resolution of 7 December 2022 with the strategic environmental declaration of the CSP (BOE-A-2022-23029).
Autonomous communities apply their own environmental policies and regulations; many of them regularly evaluate the policies’ effectiveness
There is a large number of agri-environmental policies and programmes at the regional level. All the ACs that responded to the OECD survey1 indicated that policies and programmes are in place for the protection of biodiversity and genetic resources. Most ACs also have policies for supporting certain farming activities (such as traditional practices or organic agriculture), improving water and air quality, protecting natural resources, and adapting to natural hazards and climate change. All indicated that the effectiveness of these policies is evaluated. In four of the ACs this is done regularly; for example, in Castile and León as part of the regular evaluation of its rural development programme. In other cases, policies are evaluated on an ad hoc basis; for example, Cantabria performed an evaluation of its Strategic Plan for the Prevention and Control of Forest Fires in 2018. Five ACs indicated that they have an agency specialised in designing best practices or monitoring agri-environmental performance.
Many ACs have enacted agri-environmental regulations in addition to those at the national and European levels. They range from broader environmental protection laws to specific agri-environmental regulations, including those related to the regional rural development plans. Examples include the Environmental Protection Law (7/2006) of Aragón, the Draft Environmental Quality Law of Asturias (in development as of October 2022) and the Forestry and Nature Protection Law (16/1995) of Madrid.
2.1.2. Agri-environmental policy priorities
Recent agricultural policies and initiatives have prioritised actions in climate change and GHG emissions, water, nutrients management and biodiversity
The formulation of the new CAP Strategic Plan (CSP) involved an in-depth assessment of the agro-food sector’s situation to identify and prioritise its needs in the areas covered by the CAP’s ten key objectives. In the environmental domain, this focussed on “climate change action”, “fostering sustainable development and efficient natural resource management” and “preserving landscapes and biodiversity” (Table 2.2). The highest priority was given to GHG and ammonia emissions, carbon sequestration, water status and biodiversity. Soil protection and controlling erosion and desertification, on the other hand, were given the second-highest prioritisation, even if they are an important component of the new CAP eco-schemes.
In the context of the Next Generation EU plan to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the Spanish Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (RTRP) will provide up to EUR 140 billion in transfers and loans for the period 2021-26. Within the plan, EUR 1 billion has been allocated for investments and reforms for the digital and environmental transformation of agro-food and fisheries. The specific RTRP reforms aimed at improving the environmental sustainability of the agro-food sector are:
Developing and revising the regulatory framework for the environmental sustainability of livestock farming, including developing a general registry of Best Available Techniques (ECOGAN) and revising the livestock management regulations.
Developing a new regulation on sustainable nutrition in agricultural soils, which aims to regulate fertiliser use practices to address water pollution and improve air quality (among others), and an electronic farm notebook for monitoring fertiliser application at the farm level (Section 2.4).
Establishing a governance mechanism for irrigation systems at the national level, accompanied by investments in irrigation modernisation (Section 2.3).
Many of the policy interventions to address the needs identified in the CSP and implement the RTRP priorities take the form of new or reformed regulations. This prevalence of the use of a regulatory approach over other types of measures (such as economic incentives) may be attributed to the need to allocate a limited budget to address numerous needs and priorities.
Regions face diverse environmental challenges. The CAP rural development plan provides flexibility to implement agri-environmental interventions at the AC level
Given Spain’s extension and regional diversity, the ACs face different types of environmental challenges. Biodiversity loss, soil degradation and GHG emissions were the most mentioned in the responses to the OECD survey, followed by nutrient pollution of water bodies and pesticide contamination of water and air. Specific ACs indicated that they face challenges related to ammonia emissions, deforestation, forest fires, the coexistence of livestock farming with large carnivores, and land use changes. All of the responding ACs have developed strategies to deal with these challenges; specific examples will be cited in the following sections.
The rural development pillar of the CSP includes eight types of agri-environmental measures that target a variety of environmental and climate-related goals in agricultural land. ACs choose which of the eight interventions they will apply and establish the specific conditions for the implementation within their territory. In some cases, the ACs opted out of certain agri-environmental measures due to potential overlaps with the eco-schemes or the measures to promote organic farming. The total 2023-27 expenditure forecast for these measures is EUR 763 million, of which EUR 508 million will come from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the remainder from the national and AC budgets.
2.2.1. Assessment of status and trends
Agricultural GHG emissions in Spain are on the rise again after a period of decline. The most important GHG emitted is methane from livestock activities
Agriculture accounted for 14% of Spain’s total GHG emissions in 2020, above the sector’s share in 2000 (11%). Spain is the third largest emitter of agricultural GHG in the European Union, with 38.5 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2eq), after France (70.6 million MtCO2eq) and Germany (56.1 million MtCO2eq), and accounting for 10% of EU agricultural emissions (OECD, 2022[8]).2 The sector is also a major contributor to national emissions of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N20): in 2020, 63% and 77% (respectively) of the emissions of these gases came from agriculture.
Methane from enteric fermentation and manure management constitutes the bulk of agricultural GHG emissions (Figure 2.1). The second largest are nitrous oxide emissions, mostly from agricultural soil fertilisation. Only 2% of agricultural emissions are of carbon dioxide (CO2), stemming mainly from urea application and liming of soils. Methane is a precursor of ozone; it is estimated that about 1 800 premature deaths in Spain in 2019 were due to ozone exposure (European Environment Agency, 2021[9]).
Source: OECD (2022), Agri-environmental indicators (database), http://stats.oecd.org/.
Land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) is a net carbon sink: its net emissions were of -35.5 million MtCO2 eq in 2020, with CO2 removals coming mainly from forests. Spain is a major contributor to EU LULUCF removals, together with other large Member States (such as Sweden, Italy, France, Poland, and Romania) that as a group were responsible for approximately two-thirds of the EU LULUCF carbon sink (European Environment Agency, 2021[10]).
Agriculture GHG emissions decreased between 2000 and 2013, more sharply than in peer countries. However, they grew by 12% between 2013 and 2020, while the GHG emissions level of the whole economy was decreasing. While Spain remains below the EU average, overall progress is now below that of most peer countries (Figure 2.2). The decline in the early 2000s was due to the introduction of emission control techniques in fertiliser application and improvements in animal feeding and manure management techniques. These changes brought 2012 emissions below their 1990 levels. The reversal of the trend after 2013 is associated with an increase in livestock numbers (such as the increase in the pig herd discussed in Box 1.1) and an upturn in the use of organic (manure) and inorganic fertilisers (MITERD, 2022[11]).3
Source: OECD (2022), Agri-environmental indicators (database), http://stats.oecd.org/.
Agricultural GHG emissions have grown at a slower rate than agricultural output, and Spain has achieved relative decoupling of output from emissions
While overall agricultural emissions have increased in recent years, the emission intensity4 of Spanish agriculture has decreased in the last three decades as emissions from agriculture have grown at a slower rate than the sector output. Between 1991 and 2000, Spain performed worse than the EU and OECD averages in terms of emissions intensity reductions but outperformed them in more recent decades (Figure 2.3). The rate of emissions reduction, however, decelerated in the last decade.
Spain succeeded in achieving relative decoupling5 in 2011-19, as it experienced both an expansion of output that was larger than the expansion of emissions, and GHG emission intensity decreased. An absolute decoupling, however, was not achieved in any of the three most recent decades: in 2001-10, the only one in which GHG emissions decreased, output growth was also negative.
Note: Emission intensity measures the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per unit of output. Lower numbers show greater improvement.
Source: Authors' calculations based on OECD (2022), Agri-environmental Indicators (database) and USDA (2021), International Agricultural Productivity (database).
2.2.2. Policies and regulations
Spain has set ambitious GHG reduction targets and aims to become carbon neutral by 2050
Under the EU 2030 Climate and Energy Framework, Member States must develop National Energy and Climate Plans (NECP) for 2021-30, in which they outline how they will address GHG reduction and improve energy efficiency. Spain’s NECP6 sets an economy-wide target for reducing GHG emissions by 23% with respect to 1990 levels, as set out in the Climate Change and Energy Transition Law (7/2021). In order to reach the national target, sectors not covered by the EU Emissions Trading System (non-ETS or “diffuse” sectors, which include agriculture) have to contribute with a reduction of 39% as of 2030, compared with their 2005 levels. This is in line with the new proposal for the EU Effort Sharing Regulation (which would amend the existing regulation (EU) 2018/842), part of the “Fit for 55” package of legislative proposals adopted by the European Commission in July 2021.
In the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan 2021-2030, the agricultural sector as a whole must reduce its GHG emissions by 18% with respect to 2005 levels, as a sectoral target. A larger contribution (25%) is expected from the livestock sector (MAPA, 2022[12]). These are the reductions necessary to achieve the economy-wide target. Other EU Member States, among them Germany, France and Portugal, have specific GHG targets for agriculture (OECD, 2022[13]). The NECP acknowledges the CAP’s role to address climate and environmental challenges, including through cross-compliance requirements that promote practices such as efficient fertilisation (Gobierno de España, 2020[14]).
The national energy and climate plan specifies measures to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture and livestock activities, including:
promoting crop rotation on unirrigated land, adjusting nitrogen application to the needs of the crop
separating the solid and liquid parts of slurry to use the liquids for irrigation and the solids for composting.
The plan also sets out measures to promote renewable energies, including doubling the installed capacity of electricity from biomass between 2015 and 2030. For the LULUCF sector, measures include regenerating silvo-pastoral systems, promoting poplar trees as replacements for agricultural crops in flood-prone areas, creating forest areas, preventing forest fires, integrating planned grazing into fire prevention efforts, promoting conservation agriculture, maintaining plant cover and incorporating pruning residues into the soil for woody crops, among others.
According to Spanish authorities’ projections, a scenario with the adoption of all the measures proposed in the NECP would reduce total agricultural GHG emissions by 14% between 2020 and 2030, compared with only 3% in a “business as usual” scenario. The strongest impact would be in the emissions from manure management, which would decline by 43% compared with 0.3% in the baseline scenario. Removals from LULUCF are set to decrease in both scenarios, as grasslands and wetlands have switched to become slight emitters in recent years (IEEP, 2021[15]). However, the NECP measures would help mitigate this by increasing the carbon sink capacity of agricultural land (MITERD, 2021[16]).
The Spanish Long Term Decarbonization Strategy (ELP 2050) commits to reducing Spain’s total GHG emissions by 90% with respect to their 1990 levels and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. However, even though emissions from the primary sector are forecast to decrease by 53%, the sector’s characteristics make mitigation difficult, so that by 2050 more than half of the emissions remaining will come from primary activities (MITERD, 2020[17]).
The National Climate Adaptation Plan 2021-2030 was approved in September 2020, following the declaration of a climate and environmental emergency in January. It established 81 lines of action for the different sectors of the Spanish economy. The lines of action that directly concern agriculture, livestock and food include improving the current knowledge on the climate impacts, risks and adaptation measures for the main agricultural and livestock production activities and the Spanish food system, strengthening adaptation in the new CAP, and integrating climate change in the sectoral regulations and strategies and in irrigation planning.
Most ACs have developed or are developing regional climate change strategies or plans, as well as autonomous climate change laws (Fundación Biodiversidad, n.d.[18]). For example, the Basque Country’s draft Energy Transition and Climate Change Law aims to tax actions that increase GHG emissions and incentivise those that reduce emissions, including through the promotion of sustainable agriculture and forestry management.
The CSP will play a central role in promoting interventions to reduce agricultural GHG emissions. Spain is also developing new regulations addressing specific problems
Spain included a number of specific interventions in its CSP to meet the CAP climate change objective and ensure coherence with the NECP, both for reducing GHG emissions and for improving carbon sinks. They include the enhanced conditionality (minimum requirements for benefitting from direct payments and some rural development payments); the practices to be incentivised by voluntary eco-schemes; investments and other sectoral interventions for fruits and vegetables, apiculture and wine; and rural development interventions such as agri-environmental commitments and support to organic agriculture. Other interventions for climate action include the revision of the livestock planning regulation – with the establishment of the ECOGAN livestock registry – the new regulation on sustainable nutrition in agricultural soils, and the investments for irrigation modernisation contemplated in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and the CSP rural development plan.
Climate risks to agriculture in Spain are mainly managed through the agricultural insurance system (Box 1.4). The system consists of subsidised policies that cover losses resulting from adverse climatic events and other natural causes. The subsidies are granted by the central administration and may be supplemented by subsidies granted by the AC administrations, up to 65% of the premium cost. No additional disaster relief payments are granted for losses caused by insurable risks.
There are a number of taxes on GHG emissions at the national and regional level, but agriculture is often subject to reductions or exemptions
Spain applies some national taxes on energy use and for GHG reduction. While the existing electricity and hydrocarbons taxes are applicable to both agricultural and non-agricultural activities, agriculture is often subject to reduced rates. For example, electricity used for agricultural irrigation receives an 85% reduction of the taxable base of the Special Tax on Electricity. This partial exemption, which already benefitted other industrial sectors, was extended to irrigated agriculture in 2014 to compensate farmers for an increase in electricity tariffs (MAPA, n.d.[19]). In addition, the fuel used in tractors and agricultural machinery is charged a reduced tax, and farmers using agricultural diesel are entitled to a tax refund. Like other EU Member States, Spain applies a reduced VAT rate of 10% (as opposed to the general rate of 21%) for agricultural inputs such as fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and plastics for crops (Agencia Española de Administración Tributaria, 2022[20]).
Spain also charges an indirect tax on the use of fluorinated GHGs, which impacts the agro-food industry through the food storage and distribution chain, since these gases are used in the operation of refrigeration systems (OECD, 2020[21]).
All the ACs except Madrid apply their own taxes, and some tax fossil fuel use and GHG emissions. For example, Catalonia taxes GHG emissions from industry and CO2 emissions from vehicles, while Aragón, Castile-La Mancha, Galicia and Valencia tax some GHG emissions. In some cases agricultural activities are subject to exemptions or reductions. For instance, Murcia taxes emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOC) and ammonia (NH3), and Andalusia taxes CO2, NOx and sulphur oxide (SOx) emissions, but both regions exempt facilities for intensive poultry and pig breeding from their taxes. Andalusia also levies a tax on single use plastic bags but exempts those used for food products. In the Canary Islands, farmers get a refund of the fuel tax for the use of agricultural diesel (Ministerio de Hacienda y Función Pública, 2022[22]).
2.3.1. Assessment of status and trends
The climate and physical characteristics of Spain – including a large share of territory with a semi-arid climate and a strong variability of rainfall – present substantial water management challenges, including the need to secure water supply, manage demand for competing water uses, and recover over-exploited resources (OECD, 2020[23]). The major issue relates to water scarcity due to water abstraction pressures. Adding to this are agricultural pollution and water-related risks such as flooding – a recurrent problem in several regions of Spain – and frequent droughts affecting areas with a semi-arid climate. These problems are aggravated by climate change and pose significant challenges for agriculture (OECD, 2019[24]).
Spain’s water resources are under enormous pressure, and agriculture is a major water user. The situation is worsened by illegal extractions and climate change
Spain has one of the highest intensities of water use in the OECD; already in 2015 it was considered to be medium-high water-stressed, or abstracting around 30% of its total available renewable freshwater (OECD, 2015[3]). Despite a slight decline in the last decade, the share of abstractions remains one of the highest in the OECD (Figure 2.4).
Note: The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law.
Source: OECD (2022), Agri-environmental indicators (database), http://stats.oecd.org/.
Pursuant to the requirements of the EU Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), Spain reported 762 groundwater bodies covering 360 812 km2. Nineteen per cent of this groundwater surface (68 573 km2) was in a poor quantitative status7 as of 2018. Particularly affected are four of Spain’s river basin districts,8 where over 70% of the area failed to achieve a good quantitative status: Melilla; Tinto, Odiel and Piedras; Guadiana (shared with Portugal); and the Andalusia Mediterranean Basins (European Environment Agency, 2018[25]).
Agriculture is the largest consumer of water in Spain and the most significant pressure on its surface and groundwater bodies. Over 80% of water demand in Spain is for agricultural uses, mostly for irrigation. Around 65% of crop production and 20% of the utilised agricultural area (UAA) depend on irrigation (MAPA, 2021[26]). Spain is among the EU Member States with the largest shares of irrigation in agricultural areas, which are predominantly in the Mediterranean regions (Figure 2.5).
Spain has made important efforts to modernise its irrigation systems. This has led to a decrease in the use of surface (gravity) irrigation and an increase in localised methods (such as drip irrigation). Between 2011 and 2021, the area irrigated by gravity shrank by 16% while the area using localised systems increased by 28% from 1.6 to 2.1 million hectares, thus accounting for 55% of Spain’s irrigated surface (MAPA, 2022[27]).
Between 2000 and 2018, the total volume of water distributed to farms for irrigation decreased from 16 897 to 15 495 cubic hectometers (hm3), although a slight increase took place between 2015 and 2018 (Table 2.4). Drip irrigation systems accounted for 40% of the 2018 abstraction,9 a significant increase from 2000, when they had a share of 9%. Gravity irrigation, on the other hand, declined from 73% to 33% in the same period (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2020[28]). At the same time, the total irrigated area reached almost 3.9 million hectares in 2021, having increased by 12% with respect to 2011 (17% with respect to 2002) and grown at an average yearly rate of 1% in the decade (MAPA, 2022[27]). While water use has reduced overall, it is not sure whether it has translated to lower agricultural water consumption (Section 2.3.2).
Source: Authors, based on Eurostat (2021), Agri-environmental indicators: Irrigation (database).
Almost three-quarters of the water distributed for irrigation in 2018 was surface water, while 24% was groundwater and 2% was desalinated or regenerated water (e.g. from the sea or from wastewater treatment plants) (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2020[29]).
Water pressures in Spain are aggravated by illegal or unregulated extractions (Box 2.2). The lack of official data makes it difficult to assess the extent of the problem. There is a 2005 estimate of 510 000 illegal wells in Spain (OECD, 2015[30]). The EU Court of Auditors reports that recent efforts to collect information from two regional authorities on how they detect and sanction illegal water use went unanswered (European Court of Auditors, 2021[31]).
Water availability problems will only be worsened by climate change. According to the National Adaptation Plan, average temperature increases of 1ºC and average precipitation decreases of 5% would lead to decreases of 5% to 14% in natural water inputs by 2030 (MITERD, n.d.[32]). A simulation under a 2°C warming scenario including climate change, land use change and water demand changes for 2026-55 estimated that Spain would have the highest decrease in groundwater recharge (-3 272 million m3/year) and the most dramatic water scarcity situation in the European Union (Bisselink et al., 2018[33]). The water availability reduction will come together with an increase in evapotranspiration, a decrease in average annual precipitation and an increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of droughts (MAPA, 2021[26]).
Illegal water abstractions are putting habitats at risk
In 2019, the European Commission (EC) referred Spain to the EU Court of Justice over its failure to take adequate measures to protect the groundwater bodies feeding the wetlands in the Doñana protected area (in Andalusia), as required by the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The Commission alleged that intensive irrigation and demand from tourism had overexploited the aquifers (European Commission, 2019[34]). In June 2021, the Court ruled that Spain failed to fulfil its obligations by not taking into account the pressures of illegal abstraction in its estimations of the pressures and impacts of water abstraction on the Doñana groundwater bodies. It also did not take the appropriate steps to avoid disturbing protected habitats (Court of Justice of the European Union, n.d.[35]).
A 2022 assessment by the Guadalquivir River Basin Authority found that maintaining the current degree and mode of exploitation of underground resources in areas of the aquifer would compromise its good condition and that of the dependent terrestrial ecosystems. It found that three out of five groundwater masses did not have a good quantitative condition. The report also recommended actions with a view to reverting this situation by 2027. They include strengthening water governance through a strict application of the law, preventing any increases in the area eligible for concession, and closing illegal abstractions (MITERD, 2022[36]).
As of July 2022, the EC considers that the measures put in place by Spain are insufficient to end the infringement, and sent a letter of formal notice to Spain. If Spain’s response is not deemed satisfactory, the EC may refer the case again to the Court and ask for financial penalties to be imposed (European Commission, 2022[37]).
Nutrients from agriculture are the most important source of pollution in Spanish waters. Salinisation also affects water quality and impacts agricultural activities
Diffuse pollution from agricultural activities is one of the most significant risks for the quality of ground and surface waters in Spain (European Commission, 2020[38]). The most common contaminants are nitrates that reach water by filtration or runoff or through the oxidation of ammonia from animal waste. While agriculture’s share of nitrogen discharges to the aquatic environment in Spain decreased from 93% to 89% between the reporting periods 2012-15 and 2016-19 of the EU Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC), it was still the sixth highest among the Member States that provided data (European Commission, 2021[39]).
In Spain, nitrate concentrations are higher in ground waters than in surface waters, and are at concerning levels in a significant number of groundwater bodies (Figure 2.6). As of 2020, 33% of the sampled groundwater stations had nitrate concentrations above 37.5 mg per litre (mg/l), and 24% had concentrations above 50 mg/l10 (MITERD, n.d.[40]).
Notes: The map shows the points where the maximum nitrate concentration in 2016-19 exceeded the thresholds established for surface water and groundwater, as well as reservoirs, natural lakes, ponds, estuaries and transitional and coastal waters that are in eutrophic state. Transitional waters are surface water bodies near river mouths, which are partly saline due to their proximity to coastal waters.
Source: © Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico.
In December 2021, the EC referred Spain to the EU Court of Justice for failing to take sufficient action on nitrate pollution. The Commission considers that Spain must take additional measures to prevent eutrophication in its whole territory – as previous efforts are deemed insufficient – and that it must designate additional Nitrate Vulnerable Zones, among other allegations (European Commission, 2021[39]).
Other sources of water pollution from agriculture are excess phosphorus (which can cause eutrophication and harmful algal growth), as well as pesticides reaching the aquatic environment through runoff, seepage or leaching. While it is difficult to identify a clear trend for the phosphorus values in superficial waters due to variations in the stations monitored (MITERD, n.d.[40]), the overall phosphorus balance in Spain is above the OECD average and continues to increase (Section 2.4). Phosphorus from agriculture has also been identified as one of the contributors to eutrophication in water bodies such as the Mar Menor (Box 2.3). A 2017 report estimated the annual national cost of nitrate and phosphate pollution for Spain to be EUR 150 million (OECD, 2017[41]).
The number of stations surpassing pesticide thresholds increased between 2018 and 2020, both in surface and in ground waters. This could partly be explained by an increase in the number of samples examined (MITERD, n.d.[40]). At the EU level, the monitoring of pesticides in water bodies is still at an early stage, covering a limited number of substances and based on voluntary reporting. Changes in the approval of substances also makes it difficult to identify trends. For 2013-19, Spain’s exceedance rates (percentage of sites over the established thresholds) were 13% for surface waters and 9% for groundwater, below the rates reported by peer countries such as France and Italy (European Environment Agency, 2021[42]).
Agricultural pollution has caused the deterioration of Spain’s largest saltwater lagoon
The Mar Menor is a saltwater lagoon located in the autonomous community of Murcia, in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is one of the largest saltwater lagoons in Europe; several areas on its coastline have a protected status. The lagoon itself was designated in 1994 as a Ramsar site (a wetland of international importance).
The delicate ecosystem of the Mar Menor has been subject to substantial pressures, and it is currently affected by severe eutrophication. The situation has deteriorated in recent years, as agriculture and livestock activities, as well as tourism and urban development have expanded and intensified. There have been several episodes of advanced eutrophication, and in 2019 and 2021 events of mass mortality of marine fauna occurred. The input of nutrients provoked an excess of phytoplankton, which limited the entry of light and affected photosynthesis and oxygen availability. The resulting lack of oxygen killed thousands of fish and crustaceans along the shores.
For decades, the Mar Menor has received a large amount of organic matter and nutrients, in particular point and diffuse pollutant flows (mainly of nitrates but also phosphates and ammonia) from agricultural and livestock activities in the nearby Campo de Cartagena. Contamination is associated with the expansion of irrigated agriculture, which has increased water and fertiliser use. It is estimated that each hectare of lagoon is influenced by four hectares of intensive irrigation. Nitrates and phosphates end up in the lagoon by various routes and cause eutrophication. Other activities in and around the Mar Menor – including the urbanisation of its coasts, dredging and contamination from motor boats – contribute to aggravate the ecological and chemical state of its waters.
The Spanish Government has announced investments of EUR 484 million until 2026 to restore the Mar Menor. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge developed a plan of actions that includes measures to limit agricultural activities along the shores, tackle unauthorised irrigation, review discharge authorisations, and monitor livestock farms and their impact.
Source: Based on MITERD (2021[43]), Fernández López and Heezen (2022[44]), and (Ruiz et al., 2020[45]).
Another water quality problem associated with agriculture in Spain is the salinisation of groundwater. Over-abstraction of groundwater for irrigation can drive the intrusion of saline water in aquifers near the coast. Salinisation can be disastrous for agricultural activities: salt is left in the root zone of plants, which makes soils less permeable to water. Saline water can also filter into wetlands and affect their ecosystems (OECD, 2015[30]). The problem of groundwater salinisation is especially acute in Mediterranean areas such as the Segura river basin and the Balearic Islands (MITERD, n.d.[40]).
2.3.2. Policies and regulations
The decentralisation process, EU regulation and the increased pressure on water resources have driven changes in Spain’s water policy, its focus areas and actors
Water policy in Spain has evolved significantly. The first River Basin Authorities (RBA) were established in 1926. The twentieth century saw an emergence of large infrastructure projects, including large dam reservoirs and, later, infrastructure for transfer between basins. These projects were often devised top-down, as part of national economic development strategies (Hernández Mora et al., 2010[46]). The return to democracy, the decentralised system and Spain’s EU accession in 1986 influenced governance and management and changed the policy focus areas and the roles of actors (Table 2.5).
The years following the 1978 Constitution were characterised by new legislation and the decentralisation process. Managing water quantity remained the main policy focus. This included infrastructure to increase availability. In 1979, the Tagus-Segura transfer – the first large interbasin transfer, to move water for agricultural irrigation to the southeast of the peninsula – started operating.
In 1987, the river basin boundaries were redefined, and regional governments became part of the management boards of the RBAs within their territory. The construction of large infrastructure continued. Severe droughts in the first half of the 1990s led to water use restrictions, later incorporated into a 2001 consolidated text of the Water Law (Hernández Mora et al., 2010[46]).
In the early 2000s, regional governments assumed full authority over the basins that are entirely located in their territory and created new RBAs. The WFD, with its broader approach to water policy, was incorporated into Spanish law in 2003. While Spain was a pioneer in the approach based on river basins, the new EU framework brought about new goals and actors.
This new context, with more attention to environmental concerns, influenced the approach of the 2001 Hydrological Plan, and led to the abandonment of its main project, a 914 km-long water transfer from the Ebro River in the northeast to the Mediterranean coast. The next hydrological plan shifted emphasis towards managing demand, wastewater recycling and reuse, and strengthened governance. It also emphasised the role of desalination to increase supply (OECD, 2015[3]), with important public investments in desalination infrastructure. Today, Spain has over 900 desalination plants with an installed capacity of over 4.5 hm3/day (MITERD, n.d.[50]). It is one of the countries with the highest capacity in the world, accounting for over half of the total desalination in Western Europe (Jones et al., 2018[51]). This evolution, together with further drought episodes and increased pressure on resources, also influenced Spanish irrigation policy and drove actions to improve irrigation efficiency and modernise infrastructure.
Since 2002, Spain has conducted extensive programmes for modernising irrigation infrastructure with the objective of saving water and increasing efficiency in its use
The droughts experienced in the late 1990s motivated an ambitious National Irrigation Plan (Horizonte 2008) that aimed to modernise the infrastructure of over 1 million irrigated hectares between 2002 and 2008. Following further drought episodes, an additional plan was launched in 2006 (Shock Plan). Interventions under these plans subsidised around 60% of capital expenses to improve the infrastructure in 1.8 million hectares of irrigated land. The objectives of this policy are to improve and modernise irrigation infrastructure in order to save water, promote rural development through a more competitive agriculture (see also Box 1.6); improve water quality and reduce diffuse pollution, and adapt to climate change (Berbel et al., 2019[52]).
Along with carrying out infrastructure works, the irrigation policy invests in innovation through the development of the Agroclimatic Information System for Irrigation (SIAR) network and in the training of technicians and irrigators. The SIAR network collects and publishes data from 468 stations distributed throughout the Spanish territory (361 belonging to the MAPA and 107 to the ACs). The agroclimatic data collected allows for a more precise estimation of the water requirements of irrigated crops. This information is available to irrigators through the web and a mobile app.
Given the major role of irrigation modernisation in Spanish agriculture and water policy, evaluating its impact and effectiveness is of crucial importance. The State Agricultural Infrastructure Company (SEIASA) has compared the situation of water use and other social and economic variables in specific irrigation communities and crops before and after the modernisation works. Several authors have also conducted surveys (Castillo, Borrego-Marín and Berbel, 2017[53]) or examined case studies of specific projects to identify changes after the modernisation (López-Gunn, Mayor and Dumont, 2012[54]) and (Gutiérrez-Martín and Montilla-López, 2018[55])). However, a comprehensive ex-post evaluation of the modernisation programmes at the country level is not available. Such a study would help have a better picture of the impact of this major public policy.
In addition to the decrease in the volume of water distributed to farms observed between 2000 and 2018 (Table 2.4), a 2019 synthesis study found that the objective of increasing irrigation efficiency (minimising losses) was achieved at a basin scale, and confirmed an average reduction of irrigation water use in Spain based on case studies comparing abstractions before and after the modernisation works (Berbel et al., 2019[52]). Other authors have also found a more efficient application of fertilisers through the use of fertigation (López-Gunn, Mayor and Dumont, 2012[54]). The case studies examined by SEIASA also noted less fertiliser use and lower associated costs for the farmers in some communities where modernisation works took place.
Multiple studies, including reports published by the OECD (OECD, 2016, pp. 41-42[56]), the World Bank (Scheierling and Tréguer, 2018, pp. 29-33[57]), the FAO (Perry, Steduto and Karajeh, 2017[58]),and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) (Giordano et al., 2017, p. 30[59]), have noted that irrigation efficiency improvements can be associated with higher water consumption.11 This is due to two phenomena observed in different international contexts. First, higher efficiency without production constraints can encourage farmers to switch to more water intensive crops and/or to expand their irrigation area, an effect called the Jevons paradox or rebound effect (observed in the energy sector). This results in increased water consumption and limited water saving, or even an increase in water use. For instance, a recent randomised control trial in India found that the adoption of drip irrigation by farmers led to a shift to more profitable irrigated crops, which resulted in increased revenue but led to no groundwater savings (Fishman, Gine and Jacoby, 2021[60]). Second, irrigation efficiency, even without changes in crop or area, ensures that all withdrawn water goes to the plants, thereby limiting losses, including in many contexts return flows to the environment. This can mean that groundwater recharge is diminished and so are returns to rivers, which means that water sources can be depleted even if applications are more efficient with observed water use reduction, an effect called the irrigation efficiency paradox (Grafton et al., 2018[61]).
In Spain, (Berbel et al., 2019[52]) found evidence of water consumption increases deriving from an expansion of the irrigated area in some cases and under certain conditions. (Sampedro-Sánchez, 2022[62]) found that the higher efficiency of the irrigation systems in three irrigation communities in the Guadalquivir basin led to an increase in the irrigated area, the introduction of more water-intensive crops, and the production of two harvests per year, increasing pressure on water resources.
This research, and the broader body of evidence, suggests that irrigation technology modernisation alone does not result in a decrease of water consumption. To avoid the rebound effect, these policies should be accompanied by others such as volumetric counters and control measures, reducing abstraction entitlements, capping water withdrawals or limiting the irrigated area. Addressing this issue is the reason the new CAP included a conditionality for any new irrigation efficiency investment to only be conducted in ways that do not impede on the water basin WFD quantitative status.12 Even before its implementation, several Spanish river basin authorities facing urgent situations imposed measures to restrict water demand. This is the case of the Guadalquivir basin, which in the revision of its water management plan for the third cycle of the WFD (2022-2027) imposed a moratorium in the irrigated area (MITERD - Confederación Hidrográfica del Guadalquivir, 2022[63]).
Progress in the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive has continued, and the river basin management plans for the third cycle are in preparation
Spain also progressed in implementing the WFD and in the requirement to submit river basin management plans (RBMP) every six years. There are 25 river basin management districts, six of which are shared with either France or Portugal. For the second planning cycle (2015-21), all 25 RBMPs have been adopted (MITERD, n.d.[64]); consultations are ongoing for the third cycle. Several ACs adopted regional water laws or adapted their legislation to comply with the WFD. They include Catalonia (2003), Basque Country (2006), Andalusia (2010), Galicia (2010 and 2015) and Aragon (2014) (Marcos Fernández, 2017[65]).
Users have an important role in water distribution and participate in the decision-making process of the River Basin Authorities
Water governance in Spain involves the interaction of numerous actors (Table 2.6). While the national and regional governments and the RBAs have a predominant role, local governments also have some competences. Users sharing a common entitlement or water outlet are required by law to constitute an association or users’ community (and can be obliged to do so if they are using water from an overexploited aquifer). These associations are represented in the governing and management bodies of the RBAs and participate in the management of the basin’s water resources. Given that agricultural irrigation is the main use of water in Spain, irrigation communities have a particularly important role (Box 2.4). According to the river basins regulation, the decision on water entitlements (allocation per user) is a state-level competence (of river basin authorities or, in certain cases, of ministerial authorities in charge of water management). In addition, the number of representatives from the different users in the governing and management bodies is regulated by law.
Associations of users are in charge of the distribution of water for irrigation
Irrigation communities (Comunidades de regantes) have long been part of water management in Spain. While the participation of organised groups of irrigators in management and distribution decisions dates back to centuries earlier, they were first recognised in the 1866 Water Law (del Campo García, 2018[68]).
Today, irrigation communities are public law corporations attached to the RBAs. They group the landowners in irrigated areas sharing a water entitlement or outlet. The entitlement is granted to the community and not to the property owner. Thus, they constitute an exception to the linkage between water rights and property rights prevailing in Spain (OECD, 2015[67]). The communities have autonomy for their management and define their own ordinances and regulations, which must comply with the provisions in the law and be approved by the RBA. Their main function is to distribute and manage their water entitlement. They set rules for water distribution and penalties for non-compliance and regulate the fees and charges for the use of water and the maintenance of the hydraulic systems. They also have irrigation juries in charge of resolving conflicts between users and imposing sanctions.
The communities are part of the governing and management bodies of the RBAs, where they seek to defend their interests in matters such as the volume of their water entitlement, the use of public funds for irrigation works and the equitable establishment of the levies to cover these costs. They are very numerous and diverse, comprising historic groups that were in existence even before 1866, communities formed by the public administration to manage large irrigation networks, and groups of private farmers that organise on their own initiative (Varela-Ortega and Hernández-Mora, 2010[69]).
Other policies include the establishment of a national monitoring and information system to monitor quality indicators such as the presence of nitrates and pesticides
While addressing the poor quality of surface and groundwater related to agricultural activities is a significant challenge in achieving the WFD’s objectives, it has received less attention in policy than water quantity risks (OECD, 2020[23]). Nevertheless, Spain has established criteria for the monitoring and assessment of the qualitative status of surface waters and set out environmental quality standards (Royal Decree 817/2015). The domestic regulation transposing the EU Nitrates Directive was recently replaced by a new Royal Decree (47/2022) to protect surface and groundwater from diffuse agricultural pollution. The new regulation mandates the establishment of action plans in nitrate vulnerable zones, as well as codes of agricultural good practices related to fertiliser use and manure management (Boletín Oficial del Estado, 2022[70]). Recent implementing regulations are discussed in Section 2.4.2.
Spain has a national water quality database (NABIA information system), which collects data from the monitoring programmes of the river basin districts (RBD). It monitors, among other indicators, nitrates of agricultural origin and pesticides in surface and groundwater, ammonium and phosphates in rivers, and the degree of marine intrusion in groundwater (MITERD, 2021[71]). Management of the individual RBD monitoring networks is done by the national administration or the ACs, according to their competences.
Droughts and flood risks are managed at the RBD level; drought risk management plans are required by Spanish law since 2001
Drought management was incorporated in the 2001 National Hydrological Plan, with the objective of viewing drought response actions as elements of a planned risk management strategy instead of as emergency response measures (MITERD, n.d.[72]). Inter-regional RBDs must adopt drought management plans; these plans were approved in 2007 and revised in 2018. The latest revision incorporates climate change and differentiates between drought (caused by reduced precipitation) and water scarcity (related to water demand). Among other aspects, the plans aim to guarantee water availability, avoid or minimise the effects of drought on the ecological status of water bodies and minimise the negative effects on economic activities. The legal obligation to establish a plan applies only to inter-regional basins, but intra-regional basins – which are under the authority of the ACs – may also prepare drought management plans (MITERD, 2020[73]).
Spain transposed the EU Floods Directive (2007/60/EC) in 2010. The Directive requires Member States to establish flood risk management plans (FRMP) at the RBD level. The FRMPs for the Directive’s first cycle (2010-15) had to be submitted by March 2016, and the FRMPs for the second cycle (2016-21) by December 2021. Most of Spain’s first cycle plans (which are currently in force) were approved in 2016, and the second cycle plans are in preparation. A delay in the submission of the FRMPs for the basins of the Canary Islands led the EC to refer Spain to the EU Court of Justice in 2019 (European Comission, 2019[74]). A positive effect of the joint work required by the process of drawing up the Spanish FRMPs was an improvement of co-ordination among authorities at different levels, which facilitates implementation efforts (Sánchez Martínez, 2015[75]).
In general, water polices have become more in line with OECD recommendations, but more progress could be done in certain areas
Between 2009 and 2019, Spain’s water and agriculture policies became more aligned with the OECD Council Recommendation on Water (Figure 2.7). Water quantity management is the area where Spain’s policies are most in line with the Recommendation. The most progress in the decade was made with respect to the general policy recommendations, which refer to aspects such as water policies that are based on long-term water management plans and are adjusted to local conditions. There is room for improvement particularly in the management of water risks and in water pricing, given that often only the transport and infrastructure costs are charged.
Notes: Indices range from 0 to 1, higher values indicate a higher alignment.
Source: Gruère, Shigemitsu and Crawford (2020), Agriculture and water policy changes: Stocktaking and alignment with OECD and G20 recommendations, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/f35e64af-en.
All river basin districts have a system of permits and a registry for groundwater abstractions. Smaller abstractions in water bodies not at risk do not need a permit (but must be registered), and some wells remain unregistered
The 1985 Water Law declared all waters to be in the public domain. This included groundwater, which until then could be privately owned. Water extractions established after 1985 require a licence, but owners of pre-existing wells could retain the private property right if they registered them with the RBA. However, the incomplete registration of those wells and the difficulties associated with monitoring contributed to aggravate the problems of overexploitation and illegal extractions (Fuentes, 2011[66]).
The EC’s 2021 examination of the WFD implementation notes that Spain has made progress on measures to address water abstraction. All 25 river basin districts (RBD) have established a permit regime and a registry for both surface and groundwater (European Commission, 2021[76]). Small abstractions do not need a permit, but must be registered in RBDs, with an obligation to report the amount of water extracted every year. However, a 2012 legal reform that modified some provisions of the Water Law to achieve a more adequate use of water (Law 11/2012 of Urgent Environmental Measures) clarified that the exemption does not apply to bodies of water at risk of not reaching good quantitative or chemical status. This means that small extractions in bodies of water at risk also require a permit.
The need to establish a system for monitoring water use was incorporated in the 2001 Water Law. For inter-regional river basins, the responsibility falls under the national authorities (Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge), while regional governments are responsible for the river basins within their ACs. A 2009 ministerial order (ARM/1312/2009) regulates the system for monitoring the volumes of water used from and returned to the public hydraulic domain. It requires holders of water entitlements to install and maintain a meter, and to communicate their water use data. In the case of water for irrigation, the obligation applies to irrigation communities.
At the regional and local levels, abstraction controls and restrictions have been applied in groundwater bodies overexploited and at risk, and they are incorporated in River Basin Management Plans (OECD, 2015[3]). Technology is increasingly employed to monitor and meter water use (Box 2.5).
A user-led initiative to use satellite technology for monitoring groundwater extractions in the face of overexploitation
Remote sensing technologies are increasingly being used by Spanish RBAs and users to monitor irrigated areas, estimate water consumption and verify if it corresponds to the water entitlement. The use of satellite technology was introduced in 1998 for monitoring water abstractions from the La Mancha Oriental aquifer – part of the Júcar River Basin – in a user-driven initiative that today is showcased as a success story of users’ co-ordination for self-regulation over the use of water resources.
The aquifer, covering a surface of about 10 000 km2, supports more than 120 000 hectares of irrigated crops. In the 1980s and early 1990s, large areas of rainfed crops were converted to groundwater irrigation. This led to increased extraction which, combined with the severe drought experienced in 1995 and 1996, caused several stretches of the Júcar river to dry up (Castaño Fernández, 1999[77]).
The users’ community of this aquifer is the Central Irrigation Board of La Mancha Oriental, which was established in 1994 and currently groups over 2 000 users. In 1997, in light of the overexploitation of the aquifer, the irrigation board entered into a public-private partnership (the ERMOT project) with the regional administration of Castile-La Mancha, the RBA and the University of Castile-La Mancha, for the latter to develop annual maps of irrigated areas using remote sensing techniques. In 2009, the public enterprise TRAGSATEC joined the project. The irrigation community also used satellite images provided by the EU project SIRIUS-GMES to map and estimate the irrigation water needs of cultivated plots according to precipitations, atmospheric demand and irrigation methods.
The system has operated since 1998, and the irrigation board has developed the capacity to use the images in its monitoring and decision-making and for its annual planning. Satellite monitoring is combined with flow meters on the ground. This has resulted in a substantial decrease in abstractions and the stabilisation of the aquifer level. If an infringement is detected, it is sanctioned by the irrigation jury and the RBA, a system that also resulted in a significant drop in the number of sanctions (Fundación Botín, 2020[78]). The irrigation board reports that the combination of remote sensing and other techniques has resulted in almost full compliance with their annual plans, and in the restitution of 100% of the volume exceeded in cases of non-compliance (Junta Central Regantes Mancha Oriental, n.d.[79]).
Trading water rights is possible, but rare. While Spain has made progress in pricing and cost recovery, groundwater abstraction is not subject to any charges
A 1999 legal reform introduced market-based mechanisms for trading water rights, through water permit exchange centres managed by the RBAs, which can use public funds to buy water rights from users, either permanently or for a certain amount of time. This has been used to address overexploitation in some river basins (Hernández Mora et al., 2010[46]). It is also possible for holders of water rights to enter into contracts (contratos de cesión) to temporarily cede their entitlements to other users in the same basin, provided that they respect the order of priority allocation of the RBMP. However, formal trading occurs only sporadically (Lopez Gunn and Vargas Amelin, 2020[80]). A 2015 evaluation found that water markets in Spain have only been functional during drought periods, and accounted for less than 5% of water use even during such conditions of scarcity (Palomo-Hierro, Gómez-Limón and Riesgo, 2015[81]). In agriculture, informal trading is more common, based on trust among farmers and typically limited to farmers within an irrigation community (Fuentes, 2011[66]).
In Spain there are no charges for the abstraction of groundwater per se. The pricing instruments applied to the use of surface or groundwater account for the costs associated with building, operating, and maintaining public water regulation infrastructure (Regulation Fee), and public investments on specific hydraulic infrastructure (Water Utilisation Tariff) (OECD, 2015[67]). The OECD Council Recommendation on Water calls to consider establishing pricing instruments where appropriate and applicable, in combination with other instruments, to manage water resources, phase out negative externalities and improve the financial sustainability of infrastructures and services. Charges for water supplied to agriculture should reflect at least full supply costs (OECD, 2020[82]).
Spain has reported to the EC a proportion of cost recovery for irrigation of 78% (a share higher than in Italy but lower than in Portugal and France) and large variations in water tariffs: the tariff per cubic meter ranged between EUR 0.06 and EUR 0.9 depending on the RBD. In general, data on irrigation water pricing for EU Member States are scattered and incomplete. Often, there are differences within the same country on tariffs, cost-recovery levels or the basis for charging (volumes or irrigated area), which makes analysis and comparisons difficult (European Comission, 2021[83]).
In order to create incentives to use water economically in the irrigation sector, it is essential to use metering and volume-related charges. In Spain, volumetric pricing is mandatory for irrigation communities that receive subsidies for irrigation infrastructure (Expósito, Montilla-López and Berbel, 2019[84]). The most recent initiatives for irrigation modernisation, including the CSP irrigation infrastructure subsidies, require the installation of meters (Section 2.3.3).
In general, Spain has made progress regarding the introduction of water pricing policies and cost recovery in agriculture, with a positive trend and narrowing gaps in this area’s indicators (European Commission, 2021[76]). As some gaps still persist, it is necessary to advance towards developing a water pricing policy that encourages savings, efficiency, and helps reduce pressures on the water environment and manage water scarcity (MITERD, 2020[85]).
Agriculture is often exempted from water taxes, particularly at the regional level. Water use by the sector also benefits from subsidies and tax rebates
The different administration levels in Spain (national, regional or municipal) can charge taxes on water use or pollution, according to their areas of competence. At the national level, wastewater discharges into surface and groundwater masses are subject to a tax (canon de control de vertidos) payable to the RBA. The tax is levied on authorised or unauthorised discharges into the public water domain and is calculated by multiplying the volume of the discharge by a unit price, currently set at EUR 0.04377/m3 for industrial wastewater (with agriculture among the industrial activities covered).
All ACs except Madrid have established their own taxes over different parts of the water cycle. Most regional taxes focus on sanitation and effluent control (García Valiñas and Arbués Gracia, 2020[86]). Four ACs (Catalonia, Castile-La Mancha, Galicia and the Basque Country) charge an environmental tax on water use and consumption (canon del agua). However, Catalonia and Galicia exempt agricultural uses in most cases, while Castile-La Mancha exempts agricultural uses that do not take public water or discharge into the public network (Ministerio de Hacienda y Función Pública, 2022[22]). The Basque Country reformed its water tax in late 2021; it now applies to water withdrawals instead of consumption. While all sectors including agriculture are covered, farmers benefit from a tax rebate of 90% provided that they comply with the regional agricultural code of good practices or a similar environmental certification (Gobierno Vasco, 2022[87]). Most regional taxes on water pollution, wastewater production and wastewater sanitation also have exceptions for agricultural and livestock activities (Table 2.7).
Agricultural irrigation benefits from two tax reductions, adopted in late 2014 as part of a package of measures to offset the effect of electricity price increases on farms using irrigation. Thus, consumption of electricity for irrigation receives an 85% reduction of the taxable base for the national tax on electricity. Irrigators may also apply a reduction coefficient for the personal income tax. It reduces by 20% the net yield from crops grown on irrigated land that use electricity (MAPA, n.d.[19]). In recent years, irrigated agriculture faced higher costs due to the elimination of double pricing, which allowed for prices to be differentiated between the irrigation season and the rest of the year.
Spain subsidises desalinated water to make it affordable for farmers. In the first quarter of 2022, the national administration approved a package of urgent measures to help farmers in light of the prolonged drought situation threatening agricultural production. It included maximum tariffs for desalinated water and a reduction of the water regulation fees and water use tariffs in the Guadalquivir and Guadiana basins (Gobierno de España, 2022[90]).
Even when water is not directly subsidised, support to agriculture can influence farmers’ decisions in ways that result in higher water use. The EU Court of Auditors identified a lack of alignment between European agricultural and water policies: it found that CAP income support does not promote an efficient use of water, and that few payment schemes are linked to strong sustainable water use requirements. Payments coupled to production were found to support production of water-intensive crops in water-stressed areas of six Member States, including Spain (European Court of Auditors, 2021[31]). Another study found that coupled subsidies incentivised growth in irrigated vineyards in the La Mancha area between 1999 and 2007, leading to an increase in groundwater consumption (Closas, Molle and Hernández-Mora, 2017[91]). Coupled payments have decreased throughout the years in line with the successive CAP reforms. While they still represent approximately 14% of Spain’s Pillar 1 budget for the new CAP, only 20% of the coupled payment budget will support crop production.
Improving access to data would be a positive step for water management and policy evaluation
Data related to water (such as water pricing and water use) are scattered, which hinders the evaluation and analysis of water policies at the country level. A multi-stakeholder process conducted in 2019 found that information and knowledge about water in Spain − particularly about groundwater − are fragmented and distributed among the actors involved in research and management: basin authorities, universities, research centres, public entities and users’ associations, among others. It is unclear who is responsible for the management of hydrogeological information and knowledge (MITERD, 2020[85]). (Berbel et al., 2019[52]) also pointed out that there are significant limitations on data collection and reporting on water use and consumption at the basin scale, which impairs the quality of the resulting figures.
2.3.3. Planned water and irrigation policy interventions
The coming years will see the implementation of significant public investments in irrigation modernisation and digitalisation
Irrigated agriculture will benefit from funding from the Spanish Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan: in 2021, an investment plan for sustainable irrigation systems was launched as part of the key actions. Significant funding has been earmarked for investments to modernise the irrigation systems, covering approximately 100 000 hectares (OECD, 2022[13]).
The irrigation plan foresees an investment of over EUR 700 million, of which EUR 563 million will come from public funds; the remaining amount will be financed by the private sector, including irrigation communities. The projects included in this initiative must follow the principle of Do No Significant Harm (DNSH)13 to the environment. Priority will be given to interventions that replace the use of ground or surface water by treated wastewater and desalinised water, that do not use electricity or use renewable energy, or that that apply innovative technologies, among others. Concrete measures include increasing the surfaces irrigated by drip and sprinkler systems, installing meters and using binomial tariffs (comprising a fixed and a volumetric charge), installing sensors to detect soil moisture and nutrient contents, and measures to protect fauna from drowning.
The CSP rural development plan foresees further EUR 316 million (55% financed by the EAFRD) for investments in irrigation infrastructure with environmental objectives. This measure will be implemented at the national level and has been programmed by eleven ACs. The infrastructure modernisation must not lead to an increase of the irrigated surface. The conditions for payment include: the existence of a river basin district management plan in the area where the investment is done; the installation of meters and the existence of a minimum potential water saving of 7% according to the technical parameters of the existing infrastructure. In the case of investments affecting bodies of surface or groundwater in less than good quantitative status, there must be an effective reduction of water consumption of at least 50% of the potential water savings (MAPA, 2022[92]). Following the CAP public consultation and environmental assessment process, provisions were included to ensure that farms or producers’ organisations that have been sanctioned by the competent authorities for illegal water use do not receive payments.
Irrigation policies focus on how to use the water available in the most efficient way, but do not modify in any way the volume of water supplied, as this is determined by users’ entitlements and rights. The authorities in charge of the management and planning of irrigation have no influence over the quantity of water provided through the systems, and conflicts can arise when users feel that their water entitlements are under threat.
In line with the distribution of competences in Spain, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA) is in charge of the infrastructure for water distribution in irrigated zones. The Autonomous Community administrations also carry out irrigation works within their territory. Water management and hydrological planning are in the hands of the Ministry for the Environmental Transition and the Demographic Challenge and the autonomous governments. This makes co-ordination amongst central and regional authorities essential.
As part of the implementation of the RTRP irrigation plan, the establishment of a National Irrigation Board (Mesa Nacional del Regadío) was formalised in October 2022 (Royal Decree 854/2022). This body is in charge of promoting co-operation, consultation, analysis, and information exchange between national and regional administrations, the RBAs, irrigation communities, farmer organisations, environmental organisations and other stakeholders. The same decree created an Irrigation Sustainability Observatory, an online platform to publish information and report on the evolution of indicators related to the economic, social and environmental sustainability of irrigated agriculture in Spain.
The RTRP also includes a programme for the transformation and modernisation of water management, known by its Spanish acronym as PERTE for Water Cycle Digitalization. It aims to mobilise public and private investments for up to EUR 3 billion between 2022 and 2026, of which EUR 200 million are earmarked for irrigation. These funds will be used to provide subsidies to support irrigation communities and other users in the digitalisation of irrigation management, including through the installation of meters at water intakes and on plots of land, and the automatisation of irrigation systems (MITERD, 2022[93]).
Spain is working on a comprehensive reform to its Water Law; a draft document indicating the priority areas was presented for public consultations in August 2022. This reform is also part of Spain’s commitments in the framework of the RTRP. Among the modifications foreseen are changes in the wastewater discharge taxes in line with the “polluter pays” principle, and in the cost recovery system for water infrastructure (MITERD, 2022[94]).
2.4.1. Assessment of status and trends
Fertiliser use is on the rise, as are the balances of nitrogen and phosphorus
Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are essential inputs, fundamental for agricultural productivity. Their excessive use, however, can result in water and air pollution. N is added in inorganic fertilisers and manure. It is estimated that 40% to 60% of N fertiliser is absorbed by crops and the remainder can follow two paths in the environment: some stays in the soil and some volatilises in the form of ammonia (NH3) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Nitrogen can reach groundwater by leaching or surface water via runoff. Phosphorus, on the other hand, comes from mineral sources and has a lower uptake rate by plants (of about 10% to 15%), with the remainder staying in the soil, especially in calcareous conditions, or ending up in water bodies. Phosphorus surpluses can lead to surface water contamination, which favours the growth of cyanobacteria and algae in bodies of water. Livestock density and composition are also key drivers of nutrient balances (OECD, 2019[95]).
The use of fertilisers in Spain has increased in recent years. Phosphate fertilisers had the strongest increase: their consumption (domestic sales and imports) grew by 21% between 2015 and 2019, while nitrogen fertilisers increased by 4.5%. Three ACs (Andalusia, Aragón and Castile and León), which cover more than half of the Spanish crop area, concentrate over half of the consumption of both types of fertilisers (MAPA, 2022[12]). As noted in Chapter 1, the size of the pig herd has also expanded considerably.
The Spanish N balance has shown an increasing trend after 2013. As of 2017, it was of 49 kg/ha, on par with the OECD median (Figure 2.8). During the same period, the efficiency in N use (ratio of nutrient outputs to inputs) has remained stable but below the OECD median (OECD, 2021[96]). Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ) represent 16% of Spain’s territory and 35% of its agricultural area (European Commission, 2020[38]).
Source: OECD (2022), Agri-environmental indicators (database), http://stats.oecd.org/.
The annual P balance also increased from 5 kg/ha to 8 kg/ha between 2000 and 2017; the rise has been particularly strong in the most recent years. Since 2012, the balance is equal to or surpasses the OECD median and lies above those of peer countries. Efficiency in the use of phosphorus approached the OECD median in 2013 but has been decreasing since (OECD, 2021[96]).
Source: OECD (2022), Agri-environmental indicators (database), http://stats.oecd.org/.
Ammonia emissions – almost exclusively from agriculture – are well above EU and OECD averages. Spain has failed to meet its national reduction targets
Agriculture is the most important source of ammonia (NH3) emissions in Spain: in 2020, the sector generated 97% of all NH3 emissions, most of which came from livestock. The activities with the highest NH3 emissions are manure management (particularly from pig farming) – which contributed to 43% of the emissions in the 2020 Spanish Inventory – the animal manure applied to soils (28%), the use of synthetic N fertilisers (17%) and urine and dung deposited by grazing animals (8%) (MITERD, 2022[97]).
NH3 emissions are associated with the acidification of soil and water and with increased N levels that can lead to eutrophication. They can also affect air quality and human health: in high concentrations, NH3 can affect the respiratory track and lung function. NH3 is also a precursor of secondary particulate matter (PM), a harmful air pollutant (OECD, 2019[95]).
Between 2000 and 2020, Spain reported an overall decline of 7% in agricultural ammonia emissions. They reached their lowest level in 2012 but picked up again in 2013. Spain had outperformed most peer countries until 2013, but is now lagging behind, as well as with respect to the OECD median and the EU average (Figure 2.10). The national inventory registered a further increase of 2.7% in NH3 emissions between 2019 and 2020, and an increase of 4% between 1990 and 2020 (MITERD, 2022[11]).
Source: OECD (2022), Agri-environmental indicators (database), http://stats.oecd.org/.
The emissions reduction observed until 2012 was due to improvements in fertiliser application, animal feed and manure management techniques. However, increasing livestock numbers (in particular pigs) and rising fertiliser use have pushed them back to higher levels (MITERD, 2021[16]).
Ammonia is the only air pollutant for which Spain has failed to meet its emissions ceilings and reduction targets. Spain was one of two EU Member States that failed to meet national NH3 ceilings in all years between 2010 and 2019 (European Environment Agency, 2021[98]). The EU directive on national emission reduction commitments for key air pollutants (NEC Directive 2016/2284/EU), which also transposes Member States’ Gothenburg Protocol commitments, set national reduction commitments with respect to 2005 levels for any year between 2020-29 and from 2030 onwards. Spain’s commitment is to reduce NH3 emissions by 3% for any year between 2020 and 2029, and by 16% for any year starting in 2030. As of 2020, this target was not met: NH₃ emissions increased by 0.7% compared to 2005 (MITERD, 2022[11]). However, more recent data point to a decrease of 5.9% in 2021, putting the reduction for the first time in line with the commitment (MITERD, 2023[99]).
According to national projections, a “business as usual” scenario would result in NH3 emissions remaining practically constant. The measures contemplated in the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and in the National Air Pollution Control Programme (NAPCP), which include manure management and fertiliser use actions, would allow for an average yearly decrease of 2.2% between 2020 and 2030. This would result in NH3 emissions by 2030 being 25% lower when compared with their 2005 levels (MITERD, 2021[16]).
2.4.2. Policies and regulations
The EC considers that Spain’s implementation of the EU Nitrates Directive has been insufficient. Recent regulatory reforms and new digital tools intend to better address agricultural pollution and tackle ammonia emissions
Spain’s initial transposition of the EU Nitrates Directive dates from 1996. However, the European Commission referred Spain to the EU Court of Justice in late 2021, as it believes that Spain’s measures have not been sufficient to achieve the objectives of the Directive. According to the EC, Spain must take additional measures to prevent eutrophication and designate further nitrate vulnerable zones, among other actions (European Commission, 2021[39]).
A new regulation transposing the Nitrates Directive (Royal Decree 47/2022) was recently enacted. It aims to establish measures to reduce water pollution and to achieve alignment with the EU Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies. The First National Air Pollution Control Programme, approved in 2019, also includes horizontal and sectoral measures in line with the NECP, including commitments for reductions of 62% in NOx emissions and of 16% in NH3 emissions by 2030.
The reforms applicable to livestock farming include new regulations for the management of farming sectors and the development of ECOGAN, a registry of Best Available Techniques (BAT). Farm notebooks and registries for the livestock sector in Spain have been in use for years, but the current reforms intend to strengthen the inclusion of environmental aspects and the use of digital technologies.
The sectoral regulations include new requirements on location, distance, size, sanitary conditions and biosecurity, as well as environmental and animal welfare infrastructure on farms. Priority was given to pig farming, as it is the main source of NH3; the decree for this sector was approved in 2020, followed by the decree for poultry, approved in mid-2021. In the case of bovine farms, the decree is in process.
ECOGAN will verify the implementation of BATs and support the calculation, monitoring and reporting of emissions at the farm level (MAPA, 2022[100]). Farmers must use an online system to answer questions about farm practices, which the system uses to calculate the farm emissions at different stages based on standard values. Farmers will also be informed about their carbon footprint. ECOGAN represents an improvement of monitoring, which will get closer to Tier 3 (higher level of precision), as previous standard values were based on the national agricultural census and only updated every five years.
The system advises farmers about which BAT should be applied for emission control. In the case of pig farming, two BATs are mandatory: providing multiphase feeding (which adjusts the nutrient content of the diet to the requirements and growth phases of the animals) and emptying slurry pits at least once a month; other BATs are elective. Using ECOGAN is only mandatory for intensive pig farms; extensive farming is exempted, while farms for self-consumption and smaller farms (with up to 5 breeding sows and up to 25 pigs for fattening) are exempted from several of the requirements.
Implementation of ECOGAN in intensive poultry farms (broilers and laying hens) will follow the pig sector. The bovine sector will be the last to implement ECOGAN, after the development of the sectoral management regulation is completed. Use of the registry is foreseen for dairy farms and feedlots, but not for extensive cattle farming; the latter is not subject to emissions reduction practices.
Large-scale cattle farming will also be brought within the scope of the revised EU Industrial Emissions Directive, which foresees the establishment of activity thresholds so that BATs are applicable to a larger number of installations. The EU plans to adopt the new Directive by the end of 2023.
Given the distribution of competences between the national and regional administrations, ECOGAN does not have a single national point to collect information; rather, farmers enter the data through the portals established by their ACs. Catalonia has opted not to join ECOGAN, so the monitoring of BATs will be done through the tools made available by the regional authorities. All the data notified by farmers to AC authorities will be notified to the BAT General Register, managed by the MAPA.
In the case of crops, a new regulation on sustainable nutrition in agricultural soils has been published. It aims to manage crop nutrition in a sustainable way, to increase food production by promoting a coherent approach to the sources of nutrient inputs to the soil, maintain or increase soil organic matter, reduce GHG and NH3 emissions, and prevent water pollution by nitrates and phosphates. Farmers must establish a fertilisation plan (based on a nutrient balance) and use accredited advisory services to comply with the legal requirements and rationalise fertilisation. Rainfed farms of less than 10 hectares are exempted from the requirement of elaborating a fertilisation plan. Good practice guidelines will also be developed.
The new regulation is accompanied by a Digital Farm Notebook, which will be implemented by July 2024 (or ten months earlier for larger or irrigated farms). The digital notebook will register fertilisation practices in the farm. Its use will begin with irrigated crops and larger farms, and later be extended to rainfed agriculture. Among the measures to minimise nitrate leaching or NH3 emissions are the prohibition of broadcast application of slurry and the establishment of periods in which N application is prohibited.
Sustainable fertilisation is also a new national good agricultural and environmental condition (GAEC) for the enhanced conditionality in the CSP: recipients of payments must record all operations aimed at providing nutrients or organic matter to the soil in the farm notebook, and establish a fertilisation plan where applicable. Also required are the localised application of slurry and burying of solid manure.
Some ACs have developed regulations on manure management and soil fertilisation. For example, Aragón enacted a decree (53/2019) regulating the management of manure, followed by a regional plan for the inspection and control of manure production and management activities for 2022-26, applicable to intensive livestock farming, manure management centres, and farms where manure is applied.
2.5.1. Assessment of status and trends
Spain has a very rich biodiversity and a high share of protected areas. However, the conservation status of some agricultural habitats is worsening
Spain is one of the world’s 25 biodiversity hotspots, and one of the countries with the highest level of biodiversity in the European Union (Convention on Biological Diversity, n.d.[101]). Over 85% of the vascular plant species and about half of the animal species identified in Europe are present in the country, which is also home to 120 of the 197 natural habitat types of community interest identified in Annex I of the EU Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) (MAGRAMA, 2016[102]).
Spain has a high level of biodiversity in its agricultural environment. Forty per cent of the species and 48% of the habitats protected under the EU Birds (2009/147/EC) and Habitats directives and present in the country are associated with agricultural landscapes. There is also an important diversity of autochthonous livestock breeds: the national catalogue kept by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food lists over 150 breeds that are indigenous to Spain, including 42 varieties of sheep and 40 varieties of cattle (MAPA, 2022[103]).
Having designated 28% of its terrestrial area protected, Spain meets the Aichi target of protecting at least 17% of terrestrial area by 2020 and is well above the OECD and EU shares and those of most European peers.
Source: OECD (2022), Protected areas (indicator), https://doi.org/10.1787/112995ca-en.
As of 2020, forests (including wooded, bush and scrub vegetation) covered 40% of Spain’s land area, followed by cropland (including arable crops, woody crops and fallow land) with 33% and pastures (12%). Between 2010 and 2020, forest areas increased from 18.6 to 20.1 million hectares, or 8%, while pasture area increased by 15% and that for woody crops grew by 7%. On the other hand, the surface of natural meadows and fallow land decreased (MAPA, 2022[12]).
Spain also has the largest land area under Natura 2000 in the European Union, 138 083 km2 in 2020, and accounting for 17% of the total EU Natura 2000 area (IEEP, 2021[15]). About one-quarter of the Natura 2000 network in Spain corresponds to agricultural area, including pastures and natural grasslands (MAPA, 2021[104]). However, data on the conservation of agricultural habitats for 2013-18 shows that only 9% of grassland habitats were in a favourable status while 63% were considered inadequate and 16% in a bad conservation status. This represents a worsening from the previous reporting period, and the trend remains negative (European Commission, 2020[38]).
Changes in agricultural habitats and water bodies threaten the diversity of birds and freshwater fish. Pollinators and indigenous livestock breeds are also under pressure
As is the case for the European Union as a whole, the common farmland bird population in Spain has experienced a strong decrease. The farmland bird index – often used as a proxy indicator of the status of agricultural biodiversity – shrank by 33% between 2000 and 2017, around the EU-27 average (European Commission, 2020[38]). The reduction in the farmland bird population is associated with the intensification of agriculture and an increased use of pesticides, as well as with the decrease in fallow land (Traba and Morales, 2019[105]). Dry cereal farmland is the most important habitat for farmland birds in Spain, yet this type of land has been subject to an intensification in input use. The increase in irrigated woody crops and in fertiliser use, together with a decrease in extensive grazing and an abandonment of dry cereal land also threaten farmland birds (IEEP, 2021[15]). Twenty-one per cent of the Nitrate Vulnerable Zones identified in Spain for 2016-19 correspond to protected areas, and over half of them are Special Protection Areas for birds.14
While several types of species in Spain are threatened to some extent, including amphibians (23% of known species), reptiles (18%), mammals (15%), vascular plants (12%) and birds (10%), the situation of freshwater fish is particularly alarming: 42% of the species known are threatened, the fifth highest share in the OECD (Figure 2.12). The major threats to European freshwater fish include dams and water management, water abstraction, droughts, invasive species and pollution, in particular from agricultural and forestry effluents. Seventy-three per cent of the fish species in Spain are estimated to be endemic to the Iberian Peninsula and have a restricted distribution range (Costa et al., 2021[106]). This adds an additional factor of vulnerability, putting endemic fish more at risk than those with a wider distribution.
Note: Excludes OECD countries for which data was not available.
Source: OECD (2022), OECD Environment Statistics, https://doi.org/10.1787/env-data-en.
The population of pollinators is also under pressure from habitat loss and the use of pesticides (MAPA, 2021[104]), as well as from pathogens and illnesses, invasive species and climate change. An estimated 2.6% of Spanish bee species are threatened according to the European Red List of Bees; this share could be even higher, as the status of more than half of bee species is unknown (MITERD, 2020[107]).
Changes in the agricultural landscape, the abandonment of rural land and the shift to more intensive production systems have affected the genetic diversity of Spain’s livestock. As of 2020, 82% of the indigenous breeds were classified as threatened. The most vulnerable were poultry, horses and donkeys, with 90% of breeds classified as endangered (MAPA, 2021[104]). Native livestock breeds are adapted to a specific region, help maintain the diversity of animal genetic resources and provide agroecosystem services (Velado-Alonso, Morales-Castilla and Gómez-Sal, 2020[108]). As these breeds have historically adapted well to the Spanish natural systems, their conservation could be key for the adaptation of the Spanish livestock sector to climate change (Rubio and Roig, 2017[109]).
2.5.2. Policies and regulations
Spain has developed several programmes to protect species and promote the genetic diversity of plants and animals related to agriculture. Three practices included in the new CAP eco-schemes aim to improve biodiversity
The EU Birds and Habitats Directives were incorporated into Spanish legislation through Law 42/2007 of Natural Heritage and Biodiversity, which establishes the basic legal framework for the preservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and regulates the management of the Natura 2000 network. The Law for the Sustainable Development of Rural Areas (Law 45/2007), gives special prioritisation to rural areas that are part of the Natura 2000 network. Biodiversity considerations have also been included in Spain’s Climate Change and Energy Transition Law.
Spain’s Prioritised Action Framework for Natura 2000 (PAF) provides an overview of the funding needs to implement the Natura 2000 network and the associated “green infrastructure” measures to connect nature sites. For the 2021-27 period, the cost of maintaining the Natura 2000 terrestrial area was estimated at EUR 1.4 billion.
Recent developments related to biodiversity include the approval of several national strategies:
Spanish National Strategy for Pollinator Conservation (September 2020), which includes measures for promoting favourable habitats; reducing risks from pests, pathogens and invasive species; reducing risks from pesticide use; and research.
National Strategy for Green Infrastructure and Ecological Connectivity and Restoration (July 2021), to foster the creation of a network of natural and semi-natural areas designed and managed for the conservation of ecosystems and the maintenance of their services.
Strategy for the Conservation of Threatened Birds Linked to Agricultural Steppe Environments (June 2022), focussed on the conservation of seven bird species through measures to manage habitats such as improving fallow land management or adjusting the timing of agricultural tillage and harvesting to avoid the nesting and brooding season, among others.
National Strategy for the Conservation and Use of Wild Relatives of Crops and Wild Plants for Food Use (July 2022). Wild relatives are genetically related to crops and an important source of genetic diversity to protect the latter from threats. The strategy establishes an inventory and prioritisation of these plants and proposes actions for their conservation.
In 2008, Spain established a national programme for the conservation, improvement and promotion of indigenous livestock breeds. As part of the actions in this area, subsidies are granted to support the work of officially recognised breeders’ associations. They are regulated by Royal Decree 794/2021 and financed by funds from the national budget. In 2021, funding amounted to EUR 4.9 million (MAPA, 2022[110]); similar amounts are foreseen for 2022 and 2023. Other measures of the programme include the development of a voluntary “native breed” logo to help consumers distinguish the products from these breeds and the places where they can be bought or consumed, and the establishment of an online system (ARCA) with information about the breeds and their regulation (see also Section 3.7).
The management and protection of plant genetic resources is regulated by Law 30/2006. A National Programme for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Plant Genetic Resources for Agriculture and Food was established in 2017. Its work includes actions for conservation, research, information, awareness-raising and training. The National Plant Genetic Resources Centre (CRF) develops and maintains the National Inventory.
Measures related to biodiversity have been incorporated in the CSP enhanced conditionality requirements, the eco-schemes and the rural development plan. The eco-scheme practices aiming to improve the biodiversity associated to agricultural areas and the conservation of natural resources and water are:
Biodiversity islands or sustainable mowing in permanent pastures and grasslands (eco-scheme practice P2): Farmers have a choice between either of the two options. In the biodiversity island option, at least 7% of the farm’s pasture area is left unmowed until 31 August, after which it can be subject to practices (extensive grazing, mowing, weeding, tillage, sowing, etc.) to ensure that it is in good agricultural and environmental conditions. The use of herbicides is prohibited. The “island” area should rotate every year. Sustainable mowing requires a lower number of cuts per year and a period of at least 60 days in which mowing cannot take place. The practices must be recorded in the farm notebook.
Annual rotation with soil-improving species in arable land (eco-scheme practice P3): At least half of the surface must be planted with a crop different from the previous crop. At least 10% of the surface should have soil-improving species, and half of the latter surface should correspond to legumes. Some exceptions and flexibilities apply, for example for farms of 10 hectares or smaller.
Biodiversity areas in arable land and permanent crops, with sustainable management of irrigation inputs (eco-scheme practice P5): Part of the surface is left as non-productive areas and landscape features. It should be at least 7% in rainfed areas or 4% in irrigated areas and permanent crops. In the case of underwater cropland (rice), a choice can be made between keeping at least 3% of the area uncultivated or managing the water table sustainably. No fertilisers or phytosanitary products are allowed on the biodiversity areas.
An example of a regional regulation for the protection of biodiversity is Cantabria’s Nature Conservation Law (4/2006), which among other aspects establishes a regional network of protected areas and a catalogue of threatened species. As the coexistence of large carnivores and livestock farming is a particular challenge for this AC (OECD, 2022[111]), it approved a regional Wolf Management Plan in 2019, according to which the regional administration shall compensate farmers for damages caused by the species. Extensive livestock farms that contribute to biodiversity conservation in areas where wolves are present are entitled to a yearly payment for environmental services. The payment amounts to EUR 20 per head for sheep or goats, EUR 15 for horses and EUR 10 for cattle, and is financed from the regional budget. For 2022, a total of EUR 1 million was granted to 955 farmers (Gobierno de Cantabria, 2022[112]).
2.6.1. Assessment of status and trends
Spanish soils are threatened by erosion, loss of organic matter and salinisation. Practices such as conventional tillage and groundwater pumping worsen the problems
Soils in Spain are at a high risk of erosion by water. While the rate of soil erosion in Spanish agricultural areas decreased between 2000 and 2016, it is still higher than the EU average (Figure 2.13). Erosion by water processes is a widespread form of soil degradation in Europe, occurring more often in agricultural land and natural grassland. The consequences of erosion include the loss of fertile land and the degradation of the soil surface, with a negative impact on agriculture. At the same time, agricultural practices can aggravate erosion; a better agricultural management can prevent and mitigate it.
About 10% of Spain’s UAA is at risk of severe erosion, above the EU average of 7%. Almost all of the area at risk is dedicated to arable and permanent crops (European Commission, 2020[38]). The maintenance of bare soil in woody crops (such as olive trees) is a particularly significant erosion driver in Spain. This practice can contribute to reaching soil losses of up to 47 tonne/ha/year (MAPA, 2021[26]).
Rainfed crops – in particular woody crops – in areas of moderate or high slopes and surface irrigated areas on steep slopes are especially vulnerable to erosion, particularly if they are not subject to soil conservation practices. Half of the farms that applied to CAP support in Spain are estimated to be at risk of severe erosion, as some of their areas have over 25 tonne/ha/year of soil loss (MITERD, 2022[113]).
Note: Includes agricultural areas and natural grassland.
Note by Türkiye: The information in this document with reference to “Cyprus” relates to the southern part of the Island. There is no single authority representing both Turkish and Greek Cypriot people on the Island. Türkiye recognises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Until a lasting and equitable solution is found within the context of the United Nations, Türkiye shall preserve its position concerning the “Cyprus issue”. Note by all the European Union Member States of the OECD and the European Union: The Republic of Cyprus is recognised by all members of the United Nations with the exception of Türkiye. The information in this document relates to the area under the effective control of the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.
Source: Eurostat (2020), Agri-environmental indicator - soil erosion (AEI_PR_SOILER).
Erosion also depletes soil organic matter. As of 2015, Spain had a soil organic carbon content (SOC) in arable land of about 15 g/Kg. This value was the lowest in the European Union, but close to those reported by Greece, Portugal and Malta. The lower values in southern countries are associated with faster organic carbon mineralisation (European Commission, 2020[38]). The SOC is distributed unevenly across Spain’s territory, with higher levels in the northeast and lower levels in the Ebro river basin and the areas with semi-arid climate in the south and centre (Andalusia, Castile-Leon and Murcia). The highest SOC concentrations are found in forests, and the lowest in agricultural soils (IEEP, 2021[15]).
Soils in Spain are increasingly affected by salinisation. While soil salinity can have natural sources, the problem in Europe is generally due to improper agricultural practices, including irrigation with poor quality waters, excessive pumping of groundwater and poor drainage conditions (FAO and ITPS, 2015[114]). High salinity limits the capacity of plants to absorb water and can cause nutritional imbalances or toxicity in the soil, leading to crop yield reduction (EIP-AGRI, 2020[115]). A technical report based on the EU Land Use and Land Cover (LUCAS) survey found a hotspot in the Ebro Valley, where measures of soil electrical conductivity point to a strong salinity (Fernandez-Ugalde et al., 2022[116]). It is estimated that 3% of Spain’s irrigated land is severely affected, and another 15% is at serious risk (FAO and ITPS, 2015[114]). Soil erosion, salinisation and loss of organic matter are among the land degradation processes that are associated with desertification, another important environmental concern for Spain (Box 2.6).
Agricultural practices such as conventional tillage15 can reduce soil quality and cause erosion and loss of organic matter. As of 2016, Spain was in line with the EU average, with 75% of tillable land subject to conventional practices. The remaining tillable area either was subject to conservation tillage (18%) or not tilled (7%) (Eurostat, 2021[117]).
Agricultural and irrigation practices are among the contributors to desertification in Spain
The Spanish authorities have estimated that 74% of the country’s surface is at risk of desertification, with almost 18% at a “very high” or “high” risk (MAGRAMA, 2016[118]). Spain is one of thirteen EU Member States that have declared themselves as affected under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Desertification is a complex and multi-causal phenomenon, for which no unique international indicators exist. The UNCCD defines it as the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas (as opposed to the natural expansion of existing deserts). It is a gradual process caused by human activities and climatic variations.
In the case of Spain, a number of specific conditions – some of them related to agricultural and irrigation practices – have been identified as direct and indirect drivers of desertification processes. They include: increasing aridity, caused by higher temperatures and evapotranspiration and less precipitations; more frequent and intense drought episodes; an evolution of agricultural land characterised by the abandonment of marginal land (such as pastures and fallow land) and an increase in the irrigated surface (with the subsequent pressure on water resources); the moderate impact of the irrigation modernisation efforts on reducing pressure on water resources and the higher vulnerability to water stress, particularly in the Mediterranean; the significant growth of the livestock population (in particular the expansion and intensification of the pig sector); an increase in the share of the UAA that is intensely managed by farms; more abandoned agricultural and forest land; depopulation and population aging in rural areas; a higher risk of forest fires and more large fires; and an increase in the area of sealed soil (MITERD, 2022[113]).
2.6.2. Policies and regulations
Spain’s recently updated desertification strategy and the new CAP eco-schemes include actions to promote soil conservation
In 2022, a National Strategy to Combat Desertification was approved, substituting the previous national plan of 2008. It puts the problem of desertification in the context of the international and European agenda of environmental protection and sustainable development, and in light of the advance in knowledge on the phenomenon of desertification and the role of climate change. The strategy identifies five main scenarios affected by desertification in Spain: crops affected by erosion; irrigated areas affected by desertification; landscapes associated with an unsustainable intensification of livestock farming; abandoned agricultural land; and forests with insufficient management.
The actions and measures proposed to combat desertification by 2030 include developing a plan to restore land affected by desertification; preparing a national soil inventory and an atlas of desertification; implementing good practices for sustainable land management; and drafting a national law on soil conservation and sustainable use in line with the EU Soil Strategy for 2030.
Several of the new CSP interventions aim to contribute to improving soil conditions and preventing or combatting desertification. Beyond the mandatory GAEC requirements under the enhanced conditionality, four practices of the voluntary eco-schemes aim to improve soil structure, reduce erosion and desertification, increase soil carbon and reduce GHG and ammonia emissions:
Extensive grazing in permanent pastures and grasslands (eco-scheme practice P1): Grazing done by the farm’s own animals in extensive livestock farming, for at least 120 days (continuous or not) per year (90 in some cases); the livestock load allowed in the eligible surface must respect a minimum and maximum level.
Direct sowing (with a sustainable management of irrigation inputs) in arable land (eco-scheme practice P4): No tillage and maintaining stubble on the ground for at least 40% of the land. Crop rotation under conservation agriculture. Fertiliser application according to a plan prepared by a technical advisor and subject to the sustainable crop nutrition regulation. To be eligible, the farm must not have been sanctioned for illegal water use. Farms located in nitrate vulnerable zones can be subject to additional requirements.
Spontaneous or sown vegetative cover in woody crops (eco-scheme practice P6): A vegetative cover, live or withered, is left on the ground for the whole year. The cover must remain alive for at least four months between 1 October and 31 March. No phytosanitary products may be applied on the cover.
Inert vegetation cover in woody crops (eco-scheme practice P7): The pruning debris is shred and left on the ground. No phytosanitary products may be applied on the debris.
A specific Pillar 1 payment per hectare has been destined for producers of nuts (almond, hazel and carob) in rainfed areas that are at risk of desertification due to low precipitation levels or steep slopes. This sector faces limited profitability, a lack of viable alternatives, low investment levels and a higher risk of land abandonment. The income support is expected to improve the activity’s profitability and competitiveness, thus preventing land abandonment and reducing desertification risks. The 2023-27 budget for this measure is EUR 70 million.
An example of policies at the regional level is Galicia’s Law 6/2021 on waste and contaminated soils. Among other aspects, it establishes the principles of its soil policy, including soil conservation, quality management and the recovery of polluted soils (Xunta de Galicia, 2021[119]).
Spain was a pioneer in giving recognition to environmental protection at the constitutional level in 1978. Since then, it has developed a large body of regulation in different environmental domains, which has also evolved following the development of EU regulation. The performance of ex ante Strategic Environmental Assessment of plans and programmes has been in place for decades and is done at the regional and national levels. Ex post assessment, on the other hand, is less used. This type of assessment of policies and regulations would be of value to assess their impact, determine if regulations are serving their purposes and identify areas for potential simplification.
The recent formulation of the national CAP Strategic Plan for 2023-27 (CSP) entailed an extensive process of consultation and co-ordination through which Spain identified and prioritised its needs in the agri-environmental domain. Accordingly, funds and interventions under the CSP and the Spanish Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (RTRP) aim to promote a transformation of the agro-food sector and improve its environmental sustainability. Given the diversity of Spain’s Autonomous Communities and the different environmental challenges they face, there is flexibility, particularly in the rural development pillar of the CSP, for the ACs to apply policy interventions in ways that address the regional needs and priorities.
Agriculture accounts for a relatively small share of total GHG emissions, but this share and the emissions level have been growing in the last decade. Spain aims to reduce its agricultural GHG emissions by 18% as of 2030 and committed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. At the regional level, most ACs have also developed climate change strategies or plans. The role of agricultural policy to address climate and environmental challenges has been recognised in the Spanish National Energy and Climate Plan, and numerous elements of the CSP aim to address these objectives. Taxes on energy use and GHG emissions are applied at the national and regional level, with some exemptions on agricultural activities.
Agriculture is the main user of water and a source of pressure on the quantity and quality of water resources. The modernisation of irrigation infrastructure has been a main focus of policies related to agricultural water management. In the course of the last two decades, there have been substantial public investments to improve irrigation infrastructure and incorporate technology. Additional investments to further modernise irrigation are planned for the coming years and will be subject to environmental conditions to follow the Do No Significant Harm (DNSH) principle.
As a result of the irrigation modernisation policy, the share of Spain’s area irrigated by localised systems has increased to over half of the irrigated surface, and the volume of abstractions decreased between 2000 and 2018. At the same time, the total irrigated area has continuously expanded. A comprehensive evaluation of the modernisation programmes at the country level would help have a better picture of the impact of this major public policy and the achievement of its environmental and socio-economic objectives.
In general, water policy has evolved substantially throughout the decades, influenced by the development and implementation of EU regulation among other factors. Alignment with OECD recommendations has increased, with room for further improvement in some areas. The availability and transparency of water data could be strengthened to facilitate the analysis and assessment of policies.
Along with water management, there are other areas with environmental challenges linked to agriculture, including increasing nutrient balances and growing ammonia emissions, as well as threats to Spain’s rich biodiversity and soils. Recent policy developments, including the new CSP and the measures promoted by the RTRP put a strong emphasis on addressing these problems, and in general on improving the environmental sustainability of agriculture and contributing to the climate objectives. Monitoring the implementation of these policies and verifying their impact on the environmental objectives will be key, and the development of the new farm information system (with the Digital Farm Notebook and the ECOGAN registry for livestock farms) is a valuable step in this direction.
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Notes
← 1. Aragón, Asturias, Basque Country, Cantabria, Catalonia, Castile and León, Galicia, Madrid.
← 2. The GHG emissions data compiled in the OECD Agri-Environmental Indicators Database for Spain and the other EU Member States come from the UNFCCC Greenhouse Gas Inventory Database. The agricultural emissions data exclude land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF).
← 3. See also the discussion of emissions and total factor productivity in Section 1.3.
← 4. “Emission intensity” measures the amount of greenhouse gases emitted (E) per unit of output (Y). It is calculated as the ratio between total GHG emissions generated in agriculture and the value of total agricultural output: EI = E / Y. The growth rate in emission intensity is, therefore, the difference between the growth rates of total emissions and of production. Whenever total GHG emissions grow at a slower rate than output, the emission intensity of output decreases, i.e. its growth rate is negative.
← 5. Relative decoupling of production from GHG emissions occurs when output grows at a faster rate than the related emissions. It reveals progress in emission intensity but not in total emissions. The negative growth rate of emission intensity can be interpreted as a measure of relative decoupling of production from GHG emissions (provided that the growth rate of output is also positive).
← 6. Known in Spanish as PNIEC, Plan Nacional Integrado de Energía y Clima.
← 7. According to the EU Water Framework Directive, “quantitative status” expresses the degree to which a body of groundwater is affected by direct and indirect abstractions, and “good” quantitative status is such that the available groundwater resource is not exceeded by the long-term annual average rate of abstraction.
← 8. In the EU Water Framework Directive, a “river basin district” is the main unit for the management of river basins. It is defined as the area of land and sea, made up of one or more neighbouring river basins together with their associated ground waters and coastal waters.
← 9. Water use or water abstraction for irrigation is different from actual water consumption. Only a fraction of the water abstracted will be consumed by the crops, while the rest comes back to the environment through evaporation or return flows to aquifers or surface water, depending on the type of irrigation system. For this reason, a decrease in water use does not necessarily imply a reduction in water consumption.
← 10. The threshold is 50 mg/l; anything above which waters are considered polluted or at risk of pollution under the Nitrates Directive. Areas where this threshold is surpassed are defined as “Nitrate Vulnerable Zones” (NVZs).
← 11. The cited reports by IWMI and the World Bank concluded that the concept irrigation efficiency is not suitable to measure the performance of irrigation, and discussed methods to assess water productivity instead, due in part to the disconnect between water withdrawals, water applied and water consumption.
← 12. See article 74 of the Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 2 December 2021 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021R2115&from=EN).
← 13. The DNSH principle has been included in the EU regulation establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). It requires that the reforms or investments included in Member States’ recovery plans do not lead to significant harm to any of the six environmental objectives contemplated in Article 17 of the EU Taxonomy Regulation ((EU) 2020/852): climate change mitigation; climate change adaptation; sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources; circular economy; pollution prevention and control; protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems.
← 14. Figures provided by MAPA in response to an OECD questionnaire.
← 15. Conventional tillage typically includes a sequence of soil tillage, such as ploughing and harrowing, to produce a fine seedbed and remove most of the plant residue from the previous crop. It is associated with a high degree of soil disturbance. Conservation tillage creates a suitable soil environment for growing a crop that conserves soil, water and energy resources mainly through the reduction in the intensity of tillage, and retention of plant residues. No-tillage (or zero tillage) is a minimum tillage practice in which the crop is sown directly into soil not tilled since the harvest of the previous crop. Weed control is achieved by the use of herbicides and stubble is retained for erosion control.