Water Transfer from the Ebro River

The transfer of water from the Lower Ebro River was approved by the Spanish Parliament on 5th July 2001, under the Law 10/2001, on the National Hydrological Plan. The main objectives of the National Hydrological Plan were the following: To improve the status of water in the public domain. To manage water supply and to meet present and future water demands through rational, sustainable, balanced and fair exploitation of water which will ensure a guaranteed sufficiency and quality of the resource for all uses, as well as long term protection of available water resources; To bring the availability of the resource into balance by protecting its quality and economising its use, in harmony with environment and other natural resources consideration. Regarding the last objective, the Plan proposed to solve the existing imbalances in water availability within the country through water transfers between different basins at an estimated cost of 6,000 million euros (Melgarejo-Moreno, J., 2002).