MADRID — With the start of a new ski season, the Andalusia Regional Government and the Cetursa company have once again insisted on the “urgent need” to double the extraction of water to produce artificial snow for the Sierra Nevada resort.
It’s a safeguard to maintain the profitability of a park that is losing its white mantle due to climate change. The Sierra Nevada resort (in the eponymous Spanish mountain range) is the southernmost in Europe and the highest in Spain.
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Snow cover there has been decreasing for 40 years, according to a recent report by the Sierra Nevada Global Change Observatory. It concludes that, although some years are wetter and colder than others, in general, this historic snow coverage is experiencing a “marked reduction” that corresponds to global changes in temperature and precipitation.
The request to extract more water to counter this natural decrease is not new. A file has been in process since 2023 to increase the 350,000 cubic meters extracted from the Monachil River every year between November and March to 670,000, almost double. The authorization from the Hydrographic Confederation of the Guadalquivir, which warns of the environmental impact of the measure, is the only one missing for the project to be approved.
Last week, Andalusia Government President Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla called for “everyone’s cooperation” to achieve “a fundamental milestone” for the future of the ski resort in the absence of snow. “More water is needed, it will be turned into snow and then melt and come back. There is no impact,” he said.
An erroneous argument
The ski resort has 300 state-of-the-art artificial snow canons – an investment worth 100 million euros – which Moreno described as “the most sustainable and efficient snow production system” in Spain.
For the regional government, the operation will not worsen the water crisis the region is suffering through almost chronic drought, because the water that is extracted “returns later to the circuit” — an argument experts have refuted.
Ricardo Aliod, professor of Hydraulic Engineering and Irrigation at the School of Agronomy in Huesca and member of the New Water Culture Foundation, warns that the regional government’s argument omits a sizeable aspect: part of the snow “sublimates directly,” which means it does not melt but evaporates and is lost in the atmosphere. “It is not recovered,” he says.
At Sierra Nevada, the sublimation rate is between 15% and 20%. On the other hand, “it does not return through the same channel it came from,” Alido says. Therefore, the idea that once the water has melted it will return to the Monachil River is “erroneous.”
Where and when
Rafael Seiz, Water Policy Technician at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), gives additional scientific evidence to refute the Andalusian government’s thesis. He explains that it is important to keep in mind that it is not only about the extra volume of water that would be extracted, but a question of where and when.
“Regarding the ‘where’: This additional extraction will occur in headwater areas of different rivers and streams, which feed the flows of the downstream areas. Therefore, this may have an impact on the amount of water that flows through other areas of the basin. It seems that the government is completely ignoring this,” he stresses.
Regarding the ‘when’, he points out that the capture of more water will occur during a period when the amount of precipitation in the form of snow is minimal, that is, when winter water resources are very scarce.
“In this context, maintaining the feed of the downstream flows is even more relevant in environmental terms. It is very important to bear in mind that in the Iberian Peninsula, the most abundant precipitation occurs in winter and early spring (either in the form of snow or rain), and that, to a large extent, it determines the contributions to the rivers and aquifers for a good part of the year,” he explains.
Water management questions
Seiz adds that, with climate change, the precipitation regime, whether it is snow or rain, is changing, especially in the southern regions, with warmer and drier winters.
“The precipitation is concentrated on fewer weeks and with a higher volume towards the beginning of spring. This means that increasing water extractions in winter from the headwater areas can have a more serious and intense negative effect by reducing the contributions in key months,” he warns.
Finally, the water expert puts the spotlight on the regulations of water management in Spain, where “uses prevail,” Urban supply uses (tap water) are the priority, followed by irrigation (food production) and industrial uses, such as energy production. In this sense, the rules on ecological flow in rivers are a legislative restriction on other practices.
“Recreational uses are at the bottom of the list and one needs to understand that the production of artificial snow for a ski resort is a recreational use as such,” he says.
