Problem in Catalonia and the rest of Spain
The extreme drought that Catalonia is suffering is the worst in the last century since rainfall records have been kept. Catalonia has been accumulating rainfall below normal levels for more than 3 years and the local authorities had announced that an emergency would be declared in the most populated areas if the level of the reservoirs that accumulate water for the driest months fell below 16%, something that has happened in the last few days.
Due to these drought problems, three emergency phases have been established, each one implying a maximum water consumption per person per day. Being Emergency I up to 200L per person per day, Emergency II 180L per person per day and Emergency III 160L per person per day.
This intense drought in Catalonia may extend to other autonomous communities such as Andalusia, where they have already warned that if it continues not raining, they will have to put restrictions and do not rule out having to resort to the arrival of tankers.
Spain is in the front line of climate change and is seeing how extreme weather phenomena are multiplying, especially with heat waves.
Restriction on Catalan industry
In the industrial field and with the aim of saving water, other measures are also established. The greatest restriction falls on the agricultural industry, whose irrigation is suppressed by 80% in the state of emergency. Only “survival irrigation” may be authorized for woody crops. Water use in the livestock industry will be reduced by 50%.
Restrictions will be somewhat more permissive for industrial and urban uses, which will have only a 25% reduction in water consumption. According to estimates, the chemical industry and paper mills are the industries that consume the most water for their production. At the same time, municipalities can establish further bans in their sports facilities, whether public or private, and in other leisure areas. Each locality can also apply different water-saving measures, as provided for in their drought plans.
ARI sustainable solutions
At ARI we are committed to sustainability and water reuse in industry, so we advise and help our customers to obtain greater energy savings in their processes while achieving greater sustainability in line with climate change.
To relieve this drought situation we have equipment such as the ARI CORsys, specially designed so that steam consumption in industry can recover all the condensate generated in the processes, thus avoiding the waste of water during the activity.
The steam used in the industries has its pressure reduced when it condenses after the production processes. This means that this condensate is not able to return to the boiler room causing its loss and, consequently, a great waste of water.
At ARI Armaturen we have managed to correct this situation by means of the ARI CORsys system, a system that collects the condensed steam generated by the production processes by means of our ARI CONLIFT condensate pump, which by injecting steam at high pressure is able to pump this condensate back to the boiler room avoiding the waste of resources.
This process saves large amounts of water in industries where the activity does not stop and there is a risk of wasting a large volume of resources. In this way, it will not only contribute to water saving in drought awareness, but the company will also reuse its resources by optimizing its activity.