Why Spain is turning into a desert
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ต.ค. 2023
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The UN estimates that 74 percent of #Spain is in the process of desertification. The regions #Almeria, #Valencia, and #Andalusia are the most vulnerable. If left unchecked, by 2100, most of the southern half of Spain will be #desert.
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I can't say this enough - don't reforest with eucalyptus unless you're in Australia. Its a plant suited to our landscape and culture - however its also extremely fire prone and can be part of intense fire activity. Spain needs to return to planting its own nature trees for resforestation.
As a Californian, I can confirm just how fire prone those damned things are. 😅
THANK YOU OP
I agree completely. It's a huge issue in northern Spain, where they've planted many many eucalyptus and it's drying up the land.
Aren't they just filled with oil?
As a Portuguese, I can't disagree. Eucalyptus have been a disaster to our soil, landscape and wildlife.
Spain is the Orchard of Europe, Ukraine is the Breadbasket .
Fruit basket 🧺
Nah, France is the bread basket, Spain and Ukraine are roughly tied for second in general grain production.
Netherlands is surprisingly strong in food production.
Черная земля
who wants to be anyone's basket? This is more of that distortion based on some Economic Rationale, a trick of Neo Liberalism where one does not think at all about anything more than the money. In this mindset, one can have money, but nothing much else because all the other things in the world that make for a good life, all disappeared when everyone stopped thinking about them, assuming they will be able to buy their way out of it. Being another country's basket is nothing to be proud of. It is a position that reeks of dependency and corruption. The money power has the population firmly in the grips of a contrived delusion. Ban Big Agriculture and recover your lands. Ban tourism and recover your culture.
Being from Portugal I can definitely tell that we are going in the same way. Tropical fruits are being mass farmed in the Algarve, the driest area in Portugal. Every year we have water shortages. In Alentejo, mainly in Odemira region there's thousand's of hectares for industrial farming and greenhouses, which is again, for tropical fruits such avacados and all type of berries. Most of it is exported to northern and Central Europe. Town's are running out of water but this farms and also golf courses are always green. Another aspect of this is illegal immigration and slavery due to the need for cheap labor. I personally met s group of nepalis that weren't paid for 4 months.
Something that I should add to this is that, in the latest summers Portugal's rivers that crossed the border were significant drier, since was alleged that the Spanish government would kept more water in their dams.
There were no shortages for the Population, Portugal has a lot of capacity to store, with the sole exception being the Algarve. There were restrictions for Farmers but those are most Common in regions that cant hold water, like lower Ribatejo. I know that the closest dam to my house is the most important dam in Portugal and provides water to 3 million people.
@@pedrorequio5515isso não é verdade. Ainda no ano passado estive de férias em Santarém e visitei praticamente todos os concelhos à volta. Os níveis de água estavam muito baixos no Tejo, no Zêzere e no Sorraia. E isto no princípio de outubro... Sobre o Algarve e baixo Alentejo nem há nada a dizer: culturas tradicionais como a laranja foram massificadas, excepto a zona protegida toda a serra de Monchique está coberta de eucaliptos, em Odemira só não há estufas nas praias.
@@erdnasiul87 Principio de Outubro, se tivesses lá estado 1 mês e meio depois vias outra História, de facto o Inverno de 2022 foi uma penúria, e o Zêzere perdeu uma parte grande da Água mas isso foi um evento negligente que resultou de uma solicitação de mercado irracional uma vez que tinha sido encerrada em Novembro de 2021 a central do Pego. As pessoas em Tomar e Abrantes reportavam subidas e descidas de vários metros na Albufeira de Castelo Bode, alguma vez viste uma maré num rio? A causa era o que estavam a fazer a Montante na Barragem de Cabril, mas posso te dizer que nas chuvas em Novembro de 2022 levaram a barragem dos 60% para descargas para aliviar capacidade. O Sorraia depende completamente da Chuva, também o Tejo no lado Português, uma vez que as barragens do Fratel e Belver são de fio de água, não acumulam água. Toda a gente sabia do que estava a acontecer excepto o Governo que demorou um mês a reagir até proibir a produção hidroeléctrica em 6 barragens. Eram interesses Hidroeléctricos o preço da energia estava elevado e baixaram o nível de várias barragens. O caso mais grave foi o da Barragens do Alto do Lindoso no rio Lima que passou de um nível saudável para 19% num mês, que por acaso é a mais produtiva de todas as Barragens Portuguesas devido à altura da queda de água que resulta em grande energia Potencial. A Barragem de Castelo Bode,no entanto foi mais grave o que aconteceu a entidade Gestora EDP, permitiu inclusive que o nível da Albufeira ficasse abaixo do valor mínimo da Concessão, gravíssimo e deveriam ser mais sancionados, a Barragem de Castelo Bode é diferente de muitas outras Barragens Portuguesas que ora tem interesse Hidroeletrico(Tâmega e Douro em Particular, as do Douro são todas de Fio de água que é uma escolha interessante porque o Rio Douro tem o maior caudal de Cheia da Europa mas compreensível) ora tem interesse agricola(Alqueva é a maior mas há muitas outras, Arade no Algarve e muitas outras), mas Castelo Bode tem um interesse particular para a água chegar à torneira de muitos Portugueses. Em Particular a Peninsula de Lisboa que pela sua circunstância de Peninsula não tem grandes fontes naturais de água Potável é inteiramente dependente dos aquedutos que trazem água de Castelo Bode, e por isso é que a concessão não permite baixar muito o nível.
Pois é as 150 pessoas que incendiaram a floresta e não lhes acontece nada
Here in Czechia we experience droughts as well. Southern Moravia is experiencing desertification despite being in central Europe. All rivers in this country spring here but flows to neighbouring countries, there are huge spruce monocultures planted during Austrian empire instead of native oak and other leaf trees that are dying now because of droughts..
As a barren wasteland myself, Spain's issue really speaks to me
Why? you can't have children?
@@elhombredeoro955
*Figuratively...*
Why do I feel like you are talking about your hair
Plant a tree in your belly button.
I would love to see the critical scientific data & assumptions used to predict this “climate crisis”! None of the scientific predictions have proven to be false or did not occur. And the UN climate reports are some of the worst climate change & predictions based on falsehoods & scare tactics.
"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children"
You guys are always cooking with the hard hitting quotes
It's from Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American poet from the 1800s.
You're making it sound like they came up with that quote?
I only wish they would attribute the quotes he uses from various writers and philosophers.
According to the Civilization 4 tech tree, the quote is from a Native American song. Who knows how accurate that attribution was.
It's obviously both.
as an Australian who’s job is to plant native trees, DONT PLANT EUCALYPTUS TREES. sure there drought and fire resistant, but at what cost. they’ve evolved to burn and these fires can be intense without regular burns and proper land management (look up black summer of 2019 for an example). also they’re incredibly fast growing and invasive to non native areas. they also drop large branches unpredictably making them dangerous. Don’t plant these outside of Australia.
You're late mate, Galicia is already full of Eucaliptus
the greed prevent ... people just see the money, its a disaster in north of spain.
they do that for cheap paper
Same in India too , in the western mountains many places have Eucalyptus and their drinking the ground reservoirs up ….
yeah definitely. But what fast growing trees are native to spain? Poplar maybe? Birch?
also is it true that eucalyptus trees explode when on fire occasionally?
Great video overall, however I'd like to point out a couple of things:
First, deforestation during the 15th and 16th centuries was driven by agricultural expansion rather than shipbuilding.
Galleon construction required indeed a lot of wood but it also required that supply to be sustainable during a long time (as fleets had to be replenished, repaired, upgraded and expanded). Spanish shipbuilders knew this and relied on silviculture rather than mindlessly clearing forests for logging, overexplotaition of forests was rare. Also, only minor and auxiliary vessels were actually built in Spain using spanish wood, most of the larger warships were built in the Caribbean using native resources.
This coincided in time with a growth on spanish population and a significant expansion of agriculture. Most forests were cleared so the land could be used for crop production or cattle grazing.
Second, "reforestation" during Franco's dictatorship is a more complicated topic than it appears in the video.
Non-native species of trees were introduced for either pulp and paper production (mainly on the mediteranean coast), or to create "dehesas" for recreational use or cattle grazing (mainly in the interior of the peninsula).
Main problem is the species used (besides having no ecological continuity) consume much higher amounts of water than native trees, leading to dessecation and soil degradation. This causes the local ecosystems to degrade and destabilize (often to the point of collapse) and sets up the perfect conditions for catastrophic wildfires. Species used for pulp and paper production have the added problem that they act as "fuel" as they're highly flammable, which facilitates ignition and spread of fires.
As a Spaniard, thank you for the detailed, well researched comment. I wish videos went down to this level of specificity
The Caribbean has the right wood in the right quantities to build major warships? Then, why did the British Royal Navy import its wood from Canada and the Baltic countries when they had some Caribbean possessions?
Edit: Did a quick Google search and this came up:
"Spanish galleons were built on the Basque and Andalucian coasts of Spain, in Havana, and in the Philippines, amongst other places. The wood of choice used in European shipyards was oak, in Havana mahogany, and in the Philippines, various local hardwoods were employed."
Galleons may require a lot of lumber, but there were nowhere near enough produced to cause deforestation. Even an economy that was chiefly engineered to build galleons would use far more wood on builders' homes, fuel for heating and cooking in those homes, tools, homes for producers of those tools, etc etc, etc.
@@pullt indeed, humans have silviculture figured out since they became sedentary because extensive use of wood has always been a thing. That's why "forests being cleared to make ships to sail to America" is such a dumb myth.
@@waisinglee1509 to my knowledge, caribbean wood isn't better than canadian or baltic wood. However, american species of trees are larger than european ones and therefore more desirable for ship construction. Same goes for baltic vs mediterranean species.
The spanish didn't have much trade with the north of europe nor held any major territory on wooded areas of north america. That's why they used caribbean and filipino wood for their ships.
In Portugal the situation is not as dire not because it is less agricultural but because it rains substantially more!
And the people who live there fart more so the farts float up into the clouds and help form precipitation. Science.
Thanks for pointing this out. Saved me the bother.
Though the presence of eucalyptus everywhere is pushing things in that direction
But then in alentejo and algarve is exaltly the same in andalusia, and they have tons of agriculture production and little rainfall
@@Astrogator1 sure, land management in Pt is also catastrophic....
@@ImBananas4 it’s not the same because it still rains much more on average in Alentejo. In spite of that I’m sure the intensive agriculture promoted by our leaders will still destroy Alentejo eventually, only a few decades after Andalusia.
"Spain needs to start seeing things from an environmental perspective, not just a financial one"...we all do, buddy, we all do.
While the main theme of this video is correct (the looming water crisis in Spain, and environmental impact of intensive fruit and vegetable cultivation), it is misleading to describe Spain as "the bread basket of Europe". Its wheat production is modest (4 - 8.5m tonnes/year) compared to France (30-40m), Ukraine (16-32m), Germany (20-28m), Turkey (17-22m), UK (10-17m) and Poland (9-12.5m). Spain is better described as the fruit and salad bowl of Europe. Portugal is also greener as it benefits from prevailing westerly winds off the Atlantic.
BTW - is it wise to promote investing in art?
Yoiu could call it Europes Orchard.
Here in Bulgaria (which is at the same latitude as northern Spain) we are facing similar problems. In the last 20 years snowfall has decreased at an alarming rate. This is a big problem not only for agriculture but also for the supply of drinking water.
Forestfires occur more and more often.
tazy godyna valya snyak
Къде? В Рила ?@@the.history.editss
Lmao, snow circles are way different topic than the video one! In Bulgaria we have more than enough water, no matter what! Supply of drinking water? Where? Lmao
Spain as the breadbasket of Europe? I hear that for the first time in my life.
Well, its a not the literal breadbasket but its the basket where the vegetables come from.
Same here
@@82MrKanisterthe vegetables come from the Netherlands or France.
Spain is at best the 3rd largest exporter of vegetables in Europe. That because Ukraine is out of the picture now.
@@lahabitaciondelatrapado4621most tomatoes and lemons in germany for example come from spain
@@lahabitaciondelatrapado4621 If you shop for your fruits or vegetables in any supermarket in France you will find at least one-third of the products displayed are coming from Murcia or Valencia regions, another third would be local products and then others importations from the Netherland, Italy, and worldwide
Awesome coverage from Caspian Report! As a Spaniard myself I can add that this has been happening for centuries but the latest 2 years have been very concerning for the lack of rainfall.
We're having a major shortage of olive oil due to very bad crops for two years for this very reason.
Thanks, Shirvan!
The same is happening here in portugal
All the rain fall has been coming to my part of the world in nz. It rained all last summer and rained almost every day this year. Seems like our seasons finally changed now to spring I hope.
But the problem is that Spanish government want to force portugal in sending water to Andalusia from our Alqueva dam it's not good what the Spanish government is doing because we are suffering from the same problem
Olive oil crop failing is far from armagedon
He talked about this though
Im from Northern Spain, so usually water issues sound a bit "foreign" in a way. but even here we see less rain now. Still rains a lot, but not as much as it used to be. When I went to school 20 years ago, we got -10ºC degrees in february (Now you are lucky if it gets to 5ºC) and November used to be rain for the whole month. Its october, almost november and I have been going to the beach!! with just 1 weak of rain this october, most days have been sunny and mild... which is insane.
No hay mal que por bien no venga
Dónde vives? Eso de pasar de -10 a 5 raro, si que han subido, pero no 15 grados.
That's so true! I'm from the coast, and even tho it never got that cold there, temperatures were way cooler, like getting over 25° in summer was already a pretty hot day... What I do remember very clear is the constant rain, specially from October to May, but also in summer! Rain used to catch us at the beach pretty often 😅
@@rbasket8 I live in the north of Castilla, Burgos, near the Basque Country and the border with France.
When my father was a child (1940), snowfall made them go out through the second floor of the house, since the lower floor was buried and they couldn't get out through the door. When I was little (1970) the snowfalls were heavy and abundant, but not as heavy as 30 years before. Nowadays, it has practically not snowed at all for 2 or 3 years, and when it snows some, it melts the next day.
The last heavy snow I have seen (waist deep) was in December 2004.
When I was young, it once snowed in June. The lowest temperatures I have seen have been -21º, now, in winter the average temperature is 0º, when before, a normal winter was around -5º with peaks of -10º.
Now there is only drought.
Yes, the change in weather over the years is very noticeable.
@@enriqueburgos9754 Yo tengo una sensación parecida, vivo en Barcelona, pero también soy medio aragonés de la parte del Pirineo, y de pequeño, hace 20 años, recuerdo más nevedas y más frío. Estos últimos años tenemos inviernos descafeinados. Pero yo creo que es una subida ligera de temperatura de uno o dos grados o un poco más, pero que tiene un gran efecto en nuestra sensación y en las precipitaciones. Uno o dos grados puede ser la diferencia entre que nieve o llueva y que no. Tampoco soy experto.
As someone who has studied soil agricultural ecosystems during my masters, this is pretty accurate! All the recommendations from the end of the video are things that countries all over the world should be adopting. Soil fertility has rapidly declined in the last few decades and the current agricultural practices in many countries are wildly unsustainable. It is a shame that the value of healthy soils is almost never expressed monetarily, so they are often degraded for short term profits. In the long term, healthy soils are invaluable.
Big Agriculture, Big Livestock, Big Chemical Companies - Big Business with pure Greedist intent is raping the place. Too Big to Care.
It is difficult though, you have to be able to compete, and that requires using these unsustainable practices. Reform of the agricultural market regulations is hard overdue.
Composting can produce methane for cooking or generating electricity and fertilizer as well as avoiding polluting air such as the stupid Indian farmers do to make Indian air highly polluted.
Increase greatly the price of water. That will give financial incentive to people to use water more efficiently.
Who would’ve thought that Spain and Burkina Faso would ever be experiencing the same problem
Poland as well, Poland's Siedlec Desert is also expanding
Romania is also suffering from desertification with the expansion of the Oltenian
@rejvaik00 my area in northern NSW Australia is suffering bad at the moment 😕
@@billybobwombat2231
The expert said the last past 3 years ago of wildefires in Australia took the more size than turkey space
@@billybobwombat2231 That's a shame, sadly Romania and Poland's deserts are not natural but a result of bad policy from the communist governments and a lack of proper response from successor governments afterwards
Only France, Serbia, and Spain have natural deserts that I know of
France is partially fortunate in that it's desert is not in the mainland but in Corsica, the Agriates, but even so it's also expanding
Serbia has the oldest known desert in Europe the Deliblato which yes is also beginning to show signs of expansion
Masterwork is a scam but your content is very good
Y ?
It's well made and has great graphics but the research is mediocre, the biases very strong
Sounds less like Spain is turning into a desert, and more like Spain adopted an unsustainable USA or specifically a California based agricultural model of intensive, irrigated farm production of crops that don't belong in an already arid environment, and require infrastructure to exist. When something fails, like precipitation in dry years, it becomes obvious how fragile that model is. California has had many dry years for a while, and then 1 extremely wet winter 2022/2023 floods everything and gives a false impression that it can be business as usual, or that it has returned to a wet landscape. In reality, it was always a land with high variability in precipitation, and never a place that should have been built in to a major supplier of agricultural crops.
This has to be the most american thing to say: "more like Spain adopted an unsustainable USA or specifically a California based agricultural model", brother, its the other way around, we have been doing this shit since roman times 2000++ years ago
Thanks for telling me you didn't watch the video and have no idea what you're talking about. @@dislex1a148
@@dislex1a148 modern industrial agricultural practices are definitely a US invention. AS other countries have adopted these practices they too have started to have problems with eroding topsoil and water problems. This is why there is a huge push to go back to systems of permaculture. India is having amazing success with there permaculture experiment.
@@ramsaybolton9151 "modern industrial agricultural practices are definitely a US invention." Procedes to ignore contributions from the rest of the world, like pesticides and greenhouses...
Take this kind of videos with a grasp of salt, because they are filled with semi-incorrect information and lack of proper knowledge about the subject.
Not just this one, but many other about other topics.
I am Spanish if you wonder, and know a good bunch about climate, landscape, agriculture and water management, not expert but for sure more than a youtuber like Caspian Report that only did a superficial research to do the video.
It's really wonderful to come across people who freely share valuable information online. You never know what kind of knowledge you might stumble upon that could have a lasting impact on your life.
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INSTAGRAM
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains.
I thought it went "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains"
By George, she’s got it!
Except when it doesn’t
The reindeer in Spain was hit mainly by the plane
Who else read this in Steve Fleming's voice?
Particularly dramatic is the situation in some national parks, such as Doñana at the southern tip, which is being devastated by illegal water extraction from the aquifers for farming in the area, and the regional government is not doing anything to remedy it; instead, it is doing the opposite.
That's what you get when for the Government, money comes first. We are headed to the era of Corporate Fascism.
The same sort of deep
aquifer extraction is
happening in the
American southwest
and in California.
This is not going to
end well for Spain
or USA.
@@jmdoza3938 Mhmmm, mega corps will run & own everything soon.
@@here_we_go_again2571 Dust bowl 2.0 for Spain and USA.
I hope we get some great films and literature again😅
@@jmdoza3938that's what happens when politicians let themselves be bought, i.o.W. they are corrupt. Being unefficient and destroying your own ways of producing value is not economical.
Indeed, almost half of everything that is not the north is desertifying. I'm 36 and I remember everything a little greener when I was a child. Major droughts and increasingly mild winters are accelerating the process.
You nailed it again with this eco-driven analysis of the desertification of Spain. Don't stop your great work.
“The truth is we doing inherit the earth from our ancestor’s, we borrow it from our descendants” never heard that one before that was deep.
Our boy drops a banger quote every episode I swear.
It's from a poet named Ralph Waldo Emerson.
@@TeWakaOAorakiAlthough the quote used is more than 100 years old by this point.
I believe that children are our future.
“Em Abril, águas mil” is also a portuguese saying :)
Great video once again! Let’s hope there’s a change in politics in our neighbours country..
Two major worries, Portugal 2 main rivera come from Spain, and there’s allways two moments in the year, lack of water in summer and floods in winter, specially because Spain uses their legal limits do the limit.
One of the main reasons Portugal is not more active in fruit, cereals and fish markets are becaus of the quotes we were forces to accept when we entered in the EEC, to protect the mais productors in that time, i guess that it ended to be good for our country in terms of enviroment..
Sorry for the Portugal focus, thanks for the video!
In catalan it also exists, in addition to: al Maig, cada dia un raig (in may, a thunderbolt every day)
We as Portuguese are screwed, Im not going to talk about the far left (PCP E BE) or the far right (Chega ou PNR) since thats a story as old as time, radicals will be our death.
The lack of production on our country will be our death, the arranjements we made with the eu was good for the time, it isint good for now.
On the other hand if we leave the EU like some parties wish to will kill our country, the only reason were standing is because of the EU monetary help❤
It exists in English too, April showers bring May flowers. Guess he forgot that it exists in every European language.
"Hasta el 40 de mayo no te quites el sayo"
I have lived in Andalucía for a year and maaan it's beautiful BUT you don't really understand the problem till you're not there - for example you checking the map for a water to drink or to swim - on the map the river is there, you can see that there are also some pictures that people made two years ago - you're going there and the place is dry... Not like there is little bit less of that water - no, it's completely dry, like nothing left :( it's sad but it's true
"the desert is natures way of bankruptcy, once the green is gone all life pays the debt" how does this guy come up with the hardest quotes in every one of his videos
Very sensationalist video full of fear mongering
You can say Spain is in pain
I see myself out
España es un dolor?? pues somos el 2º país del mundo mas visitado y con mas turismo, creo que no somos tan malos....😉
The comparison between Portugal and the east of Spain is ridiculous, the wind in that latitude blows from west to east, and it carries the clouds with it. So when it rains it does in the western part of the Iberian Peninsula and the air is already dry when it reaches the east part. That doesn't happen in the rest of europe where rain can go deep in the continent because of the mountains, Europe is mainly plain, while Spain is mainly mountainous, and that doesn't help when you want the rain to go deep inside the country. The intense farming might be a cause too, but not the leading one.
Spot on. Rainclouds get stopped by the mountains, so the Atlantic coast (Portugal) is wet and the interior is dry. It has always been.
You make it sound like here it rains all the time. News flash - it really doesn't. Portugal is going through its own issues with heat waves and and droughts getting worse every year. It's just that the problem is not as exacerbated by the same issues addressed in this video.
@@nhecos2998 The driest area of Portugal (Vila Real de Santo Antonio) receives an average annual rainfall of 478mm. In Murcia, the average annual rainfall is 312mm, 35% less. In Almeria it is 221mm, 54% less, which makes it the driest region in Europe.
@@Juangontiz And the driest region in Europe has one of the most water-intensive industrial agriculture productions. A match made in hell.
the rain in spain stays mainly in the plain
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I'm from one of the areas mentiones in the video and have watched myself the desertification firsthand, my running routes turned slowly into desert before my own eyes :(
You can't say Spain without pain, unfortunatelly
With such glaringly obvious signs like this all over the world, it's a wonder the average person isn't more concerned. Time for governments and individuals all over the world to step up.
@@JC-kv1vn Yes I thought the other day it's like a guard being payed to look the other way. It's a shame but you can't really blame people for wanting to enjoy
As a spaniard it's true we have a huge problem with desertification, but it's funny that precisely the day you upload this video it's raining as if it was the day of the deluge. There is a red alert for heavy rains in some regions even.
Yo vivo en Galicia. Está lloviendo muchísimo en estos momentos, pero una cosa no quita la otra. Tenemos que gastar más dinero en esto y dejarnos de luchas políticas.
Climate chaos
I was in Seville back in mid September, 2023. The weather was scorching, with highs peaking around 40-45 degrees Celsius. Seville saw similar weather all summer and even in April. I'm afraid the situation is beyond hope in Andalucia. Even in Zaragoza, the sky had a haze of blowing sand. Spain is at a crisis point.
I'm from Zaragoza too, the Ebro part hit literally home, my worst experience as of yet was in Alicante, during this summer, all that humidity and not a single tiny gust of wind, not even from the sea
Aragon, too, has always been a half-desert, save around the Ebro and other rivers draining the Pyrenees.
Weather has always been scorching in Sevilla. You're an ignoramus.
Almeria has always been a Desert, Southern Spain isn't a green forest specifically.
I've never heard Spain referred to as a 'bread basket', but I've just been to Seville and the heat was incredible even in October.; I drove past many rivers that looked like they havent seen water in a long time. I recall seeing a news article there in May that said farmers were being arrested by the Guardia Civil for drilling illegal boreholes in the Malaga area.
You haven't heard it because Spain is not bread basket of Europe. France outproduces Spain in agri-food exports.
Pretty much every supermarket in Europe sells loads if Spanish produce.
There was this saying in roman times that a squirrell could cross Spain from top to bottom without stepping on soil. Things have changed drastically.
@@AbueloDeGuerra Indeed. Intensive agriculture, centuries of deforestation to build ships, and desertification have made Iberia a very different place compared to ancient times.
The history of forest cover change in Europe is a fascinating topic and your deep dive into it was amazing (along with the rest of the video, water scarcity is terrifying).
Caspian Report, the images you shared when talking about the Ebro River are actually from the Tagus River Valley in the Ribatejo Province in Portugal near the city of Santarém.
so what.
@@tedcrilly46 - "so what."?!!!
Don't mind the FACT that Ribatejo, in Portugal and the Ebro River, in Spain. Are precisely on opposite sides of the Iberian Peninsula...
Well, at least it was not China or California. LOL 🙂
@@crpth1nobody cares.
Maybe you dont @@tedcrilly46
"Spain is the breadbasket of the EU", isn't that Ukraine & France? As a Brazilian, it sounded a lot like those "The Amazon is the lungs of the world" while most of the oxygen actually comes from sea algae & the Amazon produces 0% of oxygen as it consumes the same ammount it produces.
@@Gnomezonbacon That's not what the lungs do lol But here's the thing: "South America (which includes Brazil) does not produce a lot of Carbon" (Only 3%. In other words, the ENTIRE continent produces the same ammount as Canada ALONE - or less than 1/4 of the USA's emissions).
If your considering wheat, corn and barely it's without doubt Ukraine, but if you regarding tomatos, wine, vegtables or fruit in general, Spain is among the largest food exporters (4th in Europe and 8th in the World). Neverthess the documentary doesn't mention one of the other breadbasket of Europe: The Netherlands. Which due to high gas prices these two couple of years, is having serious problems to produce fruit and vegetables at competitive prices.
They are talking about desertification in Spain since long time ago. However, Spain has double it's forests since the 80s as well as dammed water.
I live in Granada and the last 2 summers have been hell on earth. A walk to the corner and back to my apartment to grab food and my tee shirt needs to be changed from sweat. I'd take 2-3 cold showers throughout the day just to stay cool. Restaurants close for weeks at a time and locals head out to the coast for cooler weather.
I am sure Spain will make great progress with helping to reverse this challenging trend. Love to Spain from your friends in Ireland.
You can't reverse it. It's impossible at this rate.
@@jasonhaven7170 Never say never, Israel turned a desert state in a non desert state, technology can play a major role.
Thank you for your support Brendan, greetings from Spain!!
Im really feeling the love in this thread ❤
@@nitram3757 Your very welcome, our world needs more love, peace and unity 🤝
Spanish drought is created by agriculture too agrissvely. Spain has reached its limits for more agriculture.
yes - reduce farm sizes - get rid of big ag and return to the family farm scale. - Self Sufficiency and Sustainability first. Produce what is needed by the people, reduce imports of food and heal the country.
@@kparker2430or just plant different crops and plant shrubs that ward off desertification. But that won't happen
@@testingmysoup5678No one apparently wants to turn the landscapes into their natural state.
So humans will fight for the right to grow crops until the earth will be completely uninhabitable.
Fake comment.
@@kparker2430 the country would die if most people went back to family farming as this would mean they no longer have time to engage in a modern economy.
Half of Spain has ALWAYS been arid! 😂
Excelent material! Your videos have constantly had an outstanding quality in terms of information accuracy, historical and geopolitical significance and language and conclusion profesionalism!
Keep it up!👏
There's no such thing as irreversible in nature. We just can't comprehend the time scales. The planet is in constant change
it doesn't help that ancient populations in Iberia cut down most of the original forests in the central part of the peninsula. Ancient geographers noted the verdant forests prior to large scale urbanization, when most towns were coastal.
The precipitation data I've looked for Spain show no decrease in rain. Also technically speaking climate change brings more rain as more water is evaporated from the ocean.
Very interesting video. Would it be possible to have access to the research materials used to write this video? I'm a student of environmental studies and I would like to enjoy the academic papers and inquires regarding desertification. Thanks, keep it up guys
thanks for this report, just so you know, nothing of this is know in our country
best regards from SPAIN
As a Spanish environmental engineer, I can't THANK YOU enough for making this video. Not only is it accurate in denouncing that water scarcity and soil loss are the main problems Spain faces, but also that reckless irrigation and agricultural practices, and loss of healthy forest cover are to blame for most of it. Thank you for spreading the message that in order to keep our territory moist, we need to use less water, maybe even reducing our agricultural exports for a while, and improve our soil by increasing infiltration and reducing erosion using native species to increase natural land and soil conservation practices in agriculture.
And yet developers in southern Spain are still allowed to build properties with swimming pools, most of which to be sold to retirees coming from northern Europe, when southern Spain needs to conserve as much water as it can.
Agreed, but as Shirvan said, 80% of the water usage goes to agriculture and 15% of it is wasted. Usually pools have their water recycled for the whole season and disinfected with chlorine so you don't have to fill a pool everytime you want to use it.
Aren't rich tourist more profitable per liter than low margins agriculture?
I always thought of Spain as a fruitbasket because of the Citrus and other warm climate crops difficult further north in Europe, but I suppose wheat and other originally Middle Eastern grains are shortgrass prairie plants, so well adapted to the dry grasslands of semi-arid lands like southern Spain.
I was in Spain last year at the height of the drought. It was shocking to see how dry the country has become. The good news is that it has rained a lot for the past 10 days accross the country even Andalucia. The only region that didn't get a lot of rain is Catalunya. And the forecast for the Fall predicts lots of rain. But overall Spain has to rethink its agricultural model which is not sustainable especially its fruit and vegetable "factories" in Andalucia!
"En abril, aguas mil" doesn't mean it will rain a lot in april lol. The actual sentence is "En abril cada gota vale por mil": in April every raindrop counts as a thousand. That means the rains during April are very important for crops, but not that it rains a lot. It's in final September--initial November when it rains a lot, but indeed it didn't this year
Spain and California are quite similar.
time climate in the south east is very alike, even the landscape (i confused california pics with the ones from were i lived sometimes)
I dont know much about Spain, but whenever I hear about water retention issues somewhere, it turns out to be a landscape management issue more than anything else like temperature increase. In my country it happens to be predominance of hardened surfaces in forests, straightening of rivers, and, notably, monoculture forests planted decades ago that are susceptible to pests and when they start dying off in waves, surprise surprise entire regions dry out in no time.
But there is no such thing as "irreversible desertification". Its just a trend that might take more resources and time than governments are able to commit, if there is no one permanently settled ion the desertifying area willing to fight back against the trend. Often however local communities can make a giant impact in their region. Chain more such areas with interested locals and voila, your negative trend tends to get pushed back in a few decades or less.
Spain, a country located right next to the sea could be the last to be expected to suffer from shortage of water. If anything, its mismanagement of water resources, bad planning and misuse of resources.
Hugs n prayers up 4 Spain
According to the European drought observatory, no part of Spain is experiencing drought right now. Either Caspian report or the observatory got it mightily wrong
Keyword: "right now..."
Honestly people can't be that narrow sighed, I guess.
I really enjoy your videos but I would truly love them if you could name your sources in the video description
Thank you. Fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Just a side note, Almería is a province (one of the eight) in Andalucia. You spoke of them as if separate entities.
You mentioned Almeria and Andalucia as different places.. Almeria is in Andalucia.. Almeria is a province within Andalucia. Great Video
I have never once heard Spain being referred to as the Breadbasket of Europe before...
As always, scientists have warned, they have the Desertification Research Centre (CIDE) that has planned out how to avoid this many years ago, but not enough was done, it takes a crisis for the political will to deal with a problem.
I want to see Shirvan do a report on the ongoing Nagorno Karakabh (Artsakh) conflict. I wonder if he is allowed to criticise his own country of Azerbaijan?
He has done it before
Criticise for what? Armenia started the war 3 times already.
The Karabakh conflict is not continuing, it is over. Armenians were expelled from the region they occupied and they decided to recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
ahhhh, the goddess of lake michigan keeping me safe for another 100 years
Mainwhile in Morocco and north africa 💀
Many of these cities are marked in the wrong place on your map. The regional names were also a little out of place
Great video. Regarding the fauna originally found in Spain, you might want to revise on the topic. Maritime Pines were not the main tress found in the Iberian Peninsula, but rather the most valuable ones. This is because they were used for ship building.
The Iberian Peninsula can be divided in two different climate regions by tracing a line along the tagus river. The northern part, home humid, used to be home to extensive oak and other deciduous forests. These oak forests were not necessary evergreen, as English oak (quercus rubor), a deciduous trees, can be naturally found around the coast line between the Pyrenees mountains and the Lisbon region (the most humid areas). Other deciduous oaks, such as Quercus pyrenaica and Quercus faginea, and numerous deciduous tress (Castanea sativa) overlap the same area and populate more inland territory. The evergreen oak trees (e.g. quercus suber , Quercus ilex, Quercus canariensis) and Maritime pines (Pinus pinaster) are mostly found in the other, and proliferate on low quality soil. They are also more resistant to wildfires, and will rapidly recover after one. This is a oversimplification, but gives you an idea of the fauna diversity you should find in the "unspoilled" Iberian Peninsula, including Portugal.
From what I read, human activity greatly influenced the fauna of the peninsula. There was devastation of the once-large oak forests for (1) heating, (2) ship building during the age of discoveries and (3) Agriculture/Industrialization. Wood exploration was so severe that in XIII century Portugal our Kings Afonso III and Dinis I were forced to implement the first reflorestation plan in the Leiria region with, yes, Maritime Pines (Pinus pinaster). Even though laws were passed to preserve/expand forests, deforestation continued and peaked during the XVIII century (check this paper for the facts: Reboredo, F.; Pais, J. Evolution of Forest Cover in Portugal: A Review of the 12th-20th Centuries. J Forestry Res 2014, 25, 249-256.). The reflorestation initiatives undertaken in the past 100 years were a huge effort, but the species chosen were not the best ones, just like you mentioned in the video. We are still suffering the effects of that bad choice, including uncontrolled wild fires and depletion of water reserves. This aggravates the desertification of the Peninsula, especially if we also practice intensive aggriculture.
Thanks to Caspian for sheeding light on a topic not enough talked about
When summer arrives in southern Spain, the shade is a blessing.
The storage of water, its use drop by drop in agriculture and reforestation are in our genes because for centuries they have been the key to survival.
That is why Spanish cuisine is so natural and so varied.
You ever heard of forestation? That is the only way to fix desertification. Trees attract moisture attract and produce moisture while releasing fresh oxygen. Phoenix,AZ has more moisture now that more people have moved into the area and planted grass and trees.
how challenging can it be? can the desertification overwhelm the forestation?
@@LEONSKENNEDY91 All you need are good farmers and agricultural division to plant and take care of the trees with irrigation, wither from water lines or a canal system. Asians do it and people in Latin American are good at this. Western Europe need to learn to do for themselves, and stop expect other countries to fix their problems. Forcing people to live in large cities takes away the know how of the next generation to be good agricultural stewards.
No one is forced to live in city's. Most people move to urban areas because that's where the best paying jobs are.@@alexincobra7379
3 days ago it was the most rainy day in madrid history
as a spaniard living in madrid it is funny to watch this while it is raining outside
obviously spanish will never go hungry, but europe might.
I just bought a lovely house with land in a Catalan forest, the landscape is mountainous and green, and captures humidity as fog and rain.
I believe that climate change and the consequent ecological collapse will end our species, I just hope I can live out the rest of my life without having to leave Spain.
Maybe you should do something to try to contribute to solutions to what you see coming. Spain is as good a place as any to do that.
Certainly, there's a rolling series of global shocks and reckonings coming over the next decades and continuing for centuries, and that will be very difficult to adapt to, but exactly how it plays out is still something we can affect. Our species has survived worse, it seems to have been far worse 74,000 years ago after the Toba event. We're still here though... This time we also have modern technology which lets us model what is coming before it happens and then gives us the power to use that information effectively if we choose to.
Maybe you should stay in your country and stop stressing Spain population.
I think we all need to think about our farming practices. We need as a collective improve yeilds while saving our water supplies
You guys are killing it!
I always thought France was the breadbasket of Europe.
Yes, the truth is that many countries produce wheat and it is not necessarily a dominant power in Europe
Wheat production 2021(million tons):
Russia 76.1
France 36.6
Ukraine 32.2
Germany 21.5
U K 14.0
Poland 11.9
Romania 10.4
Spain 8.6
Italy 7.3
Bulgaria 7.3
@@FlorinDanielso russia is breadbasket of europe.
We believe in you Spain, you can pull through this
Nah, most people is stupid enough to believe that the lack of water is because the government is destroying damns
Prelude to "The Water Wars". Humans are incredible at adapting. Let us hope that Spain adapts and reverses these issues, in so much as they are able.
You know what would be really smart, putting a picture on top of the video, and leaving it there during the entire presentation so as to burn the screen and obfuscate the video. I think that is just so intelligent it makes me want to subscribe.
I really appreciate this level of respect for Nature.
Great, informative video, thank you!
Some comments: the pronunciation hurts. The 'E' in Ebro is like 'especially'. Almería has an accent on the 'í', not on the 'e'.
Asturias is marked as a city, but the city is Gijón or Avilés, Asturias is a region.
Pipe down lil bro no one cares about Spain LOL 😂
Like, like, ya know.
7:20 Portugal has always looked greener not because of soil degradation (which is also happening) but because the main winds and humidity comes the Atlantic and they don't have mountains blocking the atlantic flow unlike Spain
Whatever you guys are doing with the presentation, keep doing it. I can't get enough of the visual effects.
Curiously Spain is the 2 country in Europe Union with more forest surface with 28 million hectares after Sweden.
The north of africa was once much more lush and green and the sahara desert was much smaller and thinner. I would live to have seen the area pre 1400s
Unfortunately the desert is rapidly expanding in north Africa as well. Perhaps outpacing Spain
I liked the “we borrow from future” quote
I'm in that red area in Spain it hadn't rained for so long, but as I speak it is absolutely raining cats and dogs almost as if a higher power watched your video and wanted to prove you wrong
I live in Spain and to answer to be honest, Spain has become much more green than it was 10 or 12 years ago. I recently drove from the center towards the northern side and, what was dry before, is now green.
60% greener than 40 year ago. We are becoming a huge forest
Interesting to see this comment add another perspective. Another comment states that the country is indeed becoming more dry.
I'm not trying to contradict your statement, btw, just noting that even Spaniards seem to not be in agreement about what is happening in their own country on this issue.
I mean, either there is desertification or there isn't, right? It isn't a vague, "complicated" thing to figure out. You should be able to see what is happening with your own eyes, while, as you stated you have done, just driving through the country.
This leads me to entertain the possibility that some of the information presented could simply be propagandistic in origin.
Edit: And if it is a situation where the North is getting greener (more rainfall) and the South dryer (less rainfall), it really boils down to the government not keeping their eye on the ball and investing in infrastructure needed to correct the problem in the South.
@@MichaelLewis-fx8eq It is official www.miteco.gob.es/content/dam/miteco/es/biodiversidad/temas/politica-forestal/informe_ingles_criterios_indicadores_gestion_forestal_sostenible_bosques_2012_tcm30-101192.pdf
The stats don't lie though, even with your personal experience - The fact is that the farming yields are decreasing and the deserts are expanding.
@@PluvioZA the stats prove exactly the opposite
I worry the situation might degrade even further with even a potential for conflict, just across the border in Portugal there is the Alqueva dam, this dam is huge, its the largest artificial lake in Europe, it transformed the dry southern reagions of Portugal, now Spanish farmers want that water because there are long droughts but autumn usually brings storms(like today it is crazy rainy) and that allows the dam to fill, The Alqueva Dam has more water than all of the dams in Andaluzia. But Spanish want more water from the Guadiana River, including an ilegal capture in Chança dam(Guadiana is the border here), that eats Alqueva's ecological flow which requires further water to be released.
Why wouldn't the Spanish be able to dam their side of the river?
@@ceejay1476 They can dam the Chança River, what they cant do is have a colector in front of the dam near the Portuguese Village of Pomarão, basicly keep everything on your side and take something in the other guys yard. Damming upstream of the Alqueva is also possible but because of the height of that dam, that would mean either putting Badajoz or Mérida underwater, or just make a small dam that would not make a difference. Downstream its either Portugal or the colective Border.
@@pedrorequio5515 yea the problem is, just saying "you can't build a big damn like ours because we built it first and it'd get in our way" is unfair and dirty as hell
@@ceejay1476nope, that isn't it. U just need to google, the border is an imaginary line, there isn't any natural devision, thus there isn't space without infringing in neighbours territory or causing colapse upstreem - its a technical issue not political. Happens when countries have these kinds of borders.
@@ceejay1476 The problem is technical not political, Portugal and Spain have extraordinary relations when it comes to managing border rivers, especially when compared to most countries in the world, there are deals and they were mostly followed by both sides.
Spain didnt get the short end of the deal, they had different priorities. Spain wanted more water from Tagus river, the Main river in Iberia, they got the Alcântara dam and Cedillo(this one is banked on both sides by Portuguese Territory and floods the Ponsul, a Portuguese river and Sever a border river) in exchange Portugal got something that in the 50s seemed less important to Spain because they did not imagine at the time Leon would have shotages(like last year when the suspended the Albufeira Convention) and they had the right to hydroelectfic production in the international Duero/Douro region, these are some of the most productive dams in Portugal. They also got the right to flood the Lima river upstream which resulted in the flooding of a small Village in Loredo Spain, this is the single most productive dam in Portugal because of the falling height. And crucially for the Alqueva Dam overall size the right to floods some section of the Caia River which is the Portuguese Spanish Border here. Also flooding upstream the Guadiana is not practical because if you take your time to look at a topographical map that floods Badajoz and Mérida, somehow I believe that flooding the Largest City in Extremadura and its regional capital would not at all be popular. Alqueva was largely a deserted area with only a single Portuguese village to be moved.
Fascinating, great video
Thanks for the video
what about desalinization? Is it expensive to build, maintain or both? wouldnt it be a way to combat the problem?
Destination is very energy intensive. For the whole country it would cost much more than Spain has income. In adition,desertification means more water is evaporating. For destination you need sea water which is not available inland.
Expensive to produce and operate especially at a large scale. At least it used to be, maybe tech has changed but that is the history.
its also ecologically problematic with the current large-scale technology, it's generally done through reverse osmosis which leaves behind a very toxic brine solution as a byproduct that is difficult to deal with.
It's technically doable. Just it's a bit tricky do it in profitable way for water intensive cash crops.
'They' can't make people drink toilet water if they have desalination available.
Anything that works must *NOT* be allowed to function.
Just like cheap energy, abundant food, and Freedom for the masses that most people in the West enjoy.
There are near 100,000 merchant ships that use desalination.
It's not expensive.
An aircraft carrier can produce 200,000 gallons of freshwater a day.
It was made expensive...on purpose.
Odd how few people bring all that up.
'They' want to tax and starve the West into poverty for some perceived guilt.
'They' have been trying to destroy the automobile for 50 years. For the same reason.
And it's all about the politics.
A wealthy population is difficult to control...or manipulate.
i swear you're turning the gain up higher in every new episode. im as interested in following the saga of your absolutely destroyed microphone compressor's descent into oblivion as the geopolitics.
Spain is no bread basket. It doesn’t even break the top 20 grain exports.
Se trata de producción de frutas y verduras, no de cereales. También producción de vid y aceite.
These last sentences of your intros are always so creative. How do you even come up with these ?
Did I hear you comment on the increasing CO2 and how it affects the crops? My understanding is it is a boon for plant life and we just need better water management. Also rotate crops. The Bible says to let the land rest every seven years just like the human Sabbath.
It doesnt matter what the bibble says.
Yes higher CO2 levels can benefit crops. But inly for short time. Also this doesnt matter if they die from dry seasons