No Relief In Sight As Spain Enters Second Year Of Drought - Reuters

[hatrack]

MADRID - Spanish farmers are preparing for losses and the government is taking emergency measures as meteorologists say a drought has entered its second year and there is no sign of relief in the short term.

Spain suffered its worst drought since records began this year and the National Meteorological Institute (INM) says the drought persisted in the first quarter of the new water year, which runs from September to August. "The forecasts, at least what we can see in the next month or two...do not allow us to foresee a situation in which it rains as much as is necessary to solve this," Angel Rivera, the INM's director of forecasting, told Reuters.

Spain announced new water management measures on Friday, including construction of a new desalination plant in the parched southeast, as Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said a second year of drought was likely.

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Spain's cereal crop was devastated by this year's drought, while hydroelectric power generation - one of the cheapest and cleanest ways of producing electricity - fell to its lowest level in 48 years, according to grid data. For this crop year, the regional government of sun-baked Andalusia has already taken measures to help farmers face the drought. Farmers can leave 50 percent of their land fallow and still claim subsidies - the same amount as last year, but up sharply from the 10 percent set aside in good years.

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http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/34288/story.htm