ABSTRACT
Public authorities need to ensure the availability of water for life (the right to be supplied with quality water and to available water resources to be able to ensure the environmental sustainability of our natural heritage for future generations). Public authorities need to do so without overlooking that water is also a production factor, and market factors are extremely important. With this approach, this chapter addresses the management experience of the Spanish Ministry of the Environment in the context of a changing framework characterized by: the new dynamics caused by climate change, with periods of severe droughts; the impact of the new statutes of Spain’s Autonomous Communities, which are modifying the traditional organization of river basin management competencies; and some indecisive public policies both in Spain and elsewhere in the European Union vis-à-vis the international economic situation. This context may require reconsideration in Spain of the role of agriculture and irrigated land whose effectiveness and efficiency needs to be a precondition. This is the back-drop for the overview in this chapter of the management and intervention tools needed for Spain to be able to achieve the aims of European directives ensuring environmental sustainability and a balanced spatial development in the different Autonomous Communities of Spain. In this chapter we argue how during the 2004–8 drought period in Spain, market tools, duly combined with the internalization of the external effects of the different water uses and activities, constituted efficient mechanisms for dealing with the drought situation, so that the essential resources for drinking water supply and for sustaining the natural heritage at risk, can be guaranteed.
