Addressing Water Challenges in Southern Spain: A Comprehensive Assessment and Sustainable Management Approach

Increasing climate-related water stress and growing water demand are challenging the goal of achieving food and water security in many basins around the world.. Addressing the problem requires the integration of sectoral policies based on interdisciplinary knowledge and sustainable management strategies. This study presents the development of an innovative and dynamic optimization framework that integrates a detailed representation of hydrological and technological constraints while accounting for the feedback between sectors (agriculture, urban, industrial, golf, and livestock). The hydroeconomic model has been applied in Axarquía (Spain) as a case study to evaluate the performance of water allocation and management among several users, determine the cost of water scarcity, and design sustainable water management interventions under future climate conditions. The policy analysis offers insights into the effects of alternative management strategies regarding cost of water supply from different water sources (including surface water diversion, groundwater pumping, non-conventional water production, and reservoirs). Our results highlight the potential of policy options for increasing water availability and suggest the most cost-effective and feasible options. The findings provide efficient water allocation plans between competing sectors, emphasizing the importance of using non-conventional water resources, such as desalinated water and wastewater, which help to save limited conventional resources and play an increasingly important role in meeting rising water demands. These critical results could help decision-makers to bring about efficient water allocation planning among sectors and advance resilience and adaptation to climate water stress. Axarquía’s issues and challenges light a path to relevance for other river basins internationally.