The Weather Channel | By: Ada Carr | August 16, 2017:

Spain’s Tagus River is at risk of drying up completely due to drought and water transfer. The river is subject to a water management plan over a decade old that did not take Spain’s droughts into consideration. The Tagus is also being used to supply water to the six million residents of Madrid.

A combination of drought and inadequate water maintenance in Spain has pushed the Iberian Peninsula’s longest river to the edge of completely drying up.

The demand placed on the Tagus River has turned it into “one of the rivers in the worst ecological state in the peninsula,” water governance specialist Nuria Hernández-Mora said in a statement obtained by Euronews.com.

The issues stem from the Aragón region in the northeast, where water from the Tagus is diverted into the Segura River to water dry farmland, according to the Guardian. The plan to feed the Segura with water from the Tagus was originally developed in 1902 and miscalculated the amount of water available. It made no allowance for the regular periods of drought.

A government law that requires water to be transferred as soon as there is an excess amount has added to the problem, Euronews reported. The law has made it impossible to store water for use during droughts.

The combination of these factors has been devastating for the river as Spain endures one of its worst droughts in decades.

To read full article – please click here.