Drought emergency in Barcelona

On 1 February 2024, the Catalan government declared a drought emergency in the Barcelona area and much of Catalonia, with restrictions on water use for households, industry and agriculture. The measures reached more than 200 municipalities and marked a change of phase: from asking for savings to imposing limits. For companies and families, drought stopped being a matter of headlines and became a real condition of daily operation.

Until then, for most businesses in the metropolitan area, water had been a cheap, plentiful and barely visible supply. The declaration of emergency forced people to see it for what it is, a limited resource on which hotels, restaurants, factories, residents’ associations and farms depend, and to ask what would happen if restrictions tightened. The useful question is not how long the situation will last, which nobody can guarantee, but how prepared each business is to operate with less water.

From emergency to business

A declaration of emergency allows consumption limits that affect domestic, industrial and farming uses. They are not the same for everyone: each sector has its own restrictions and timetables, set out in rules and resolutions that are best read in detail rather than through press summaries. Conditions can change over time and also vary by municipality and use, so what applied one month may not apply the next.

That is why it is worth knowing which specific obligations fall on each activity: whether there is a consumption cap, whether saving or reuse measures are required, who monitors them and what the consequences of non-compliance are. A company with several sites or different activities may be subject to different regimes at once. The prudent course is to name a person responsible for following the changes and keeping decision-makers informed.

A risk that was not on the list

Drought was no longer just a rural issue: it was becoming a risk for hotels, industry and services. Businesses that use a lot of water, such as hospitality, food production, industrial cleaning or sports facilities, saw that their operations depended on a variable they did not control. Even companies that use little water depend on suppliers and customers that need a lot, so the risk can arrive through the supply chain.

Measuring water use and planning alternatives became part of running any business. Just as the electricity bill or the spending on raw materials is monitored, water joins the dashboard: how much is used, for what, at what cost and what room for manoeuvre exists if supply falls or prices rise. Whoever measures it today takes better decisions tomorrow, whether the situation improves or worsens.

What to review

A useful first step is to know how much water each process uses, where it can be saved or reused and what would happen if supply were restricted even further. Often the biggest improvements come from modest measures: finding leaks, adjusting equipment, changing schedules or reusing water for purposes that do not require the same quality. A simple diagnosis, with meters and an inventory of uses, is usually enough to see where to begin.

It is also worth checking whether insurance and contracts cover supply interruptions. A policy may cover material damage but not lost activity for lack of water; a contract with customers may demand deadlines that a restriction would make unreachable. Reviewing it now, calmly, is better than discovering it at the moment of a claim. If there are doubts about the scope of a policy, an adviser can help read it through the eyes of whoever would have to claim.

Scarce resources are better managed when they are measured.

This article is general information. It is not legal, tax or investment advice, and it does not take anyone’s particular circumstances into account.