Envolvimento da comunidade de utilizadores na gestão dos recursos hídricos:

Institutional setting

The axes that underpin the operation of the Central Board of Water Users of the Baix Ter are the good order of the uses, the right to the use of water by citizens and activities, and the participation of the user in decision-making, both those related to water management and the implementation of measures for its sustainable use. All of them are principles that share the motivation of the postulates of the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) and have the added particularity that they are exercised from the proximity of the territory.

The functions carried out by the JCUABT are those of management, planning and control of water and its use, the application of efficiency programs, the containment of salinity and overexploitation, the recharge of aquifers and wetlands, and the improvement of the circulation of river flows, ditches and irrigation. Additionally, and in a very specific way, the function of the JCUABT is the generation of new specialized knowledge that, together with the existing one, allows us to talk one-on-one with the Catalan Hydraulic Administration when it comes to foreseeing policies for better management and protection of water resources.

Geographical setting

The Central Board of Water Users of the Baix Ter comprises the scope of the bodies of surface and underground water that run within the delimitation of the so-called Mass 33 or Fluviodeltaic of the Baix Ter. It includes the lower course of the Ter River from Celrà to the mouth, the Daró River and the Pals Stream, and the section of the Albons corridor to L’Escala. This area also includes groundwater from the aquifers of the Baix Ter alluvial plain, the Celrà basin aquifer and the Daró aquifers and the Palafrugell basin, including a total of 40 municipalities.

Also, part of the JCUABT are: the Community of Irrigators of the Menàrguens Dam, the Community of Irrigators of the Rec del Molí de Pals, the Community of Irrigators of Cervià-Sant Jordi-Colomers, and the Community of Irrigators of the Acequia Carrilet, with almost 10,000 ha of irrigation, in addition to approximately a thousand wells.

Historical overview

The creation of the Central Board of Water Users of the Baix Ter is the response that gives the territory to a rational claim for the protection of the Ter River and its aquifers, and that has the justification in the basic function that its water develops in the socioeconomic growth of this wide territory, which extends from the surroundings of Girona to the lower plain of the river, leader of the country in quality tourism activity and solid reference in the whole of its agricultural production.

The Central Board of Water Users of Baix Ter (JCUABT), was recognized by the Catalan Water Agency on April 9, 2015 and appointed its governing bodies at the General Meeting of May 7, 2015. Previously, the Drafting Committee of the Statutes had submitted on October 31, 2014, the application for the constitution and approval of its statutes.

In his daily work, he has developed an extensive knowledge about the hydrology and hydrogeology of the area, with advanced monitoring and the use of predictive models of detail. The use of this information, together with the political will of a joint management of the resource, allow it to face the problems derived from the use of water in an area eminently agricultural and, at the same time, tourist.

Evidence of benefits from implementation

With its constitution and structuring, since 2015 the Central Board of Users of the Baix Ter has been initiated opportunities to channel and structurally rethink the hydrological functioning of the country: extending the principle of hydrological solidarity to all the basins of the Catalan territory, betting on a greater rapprochement and a real application of the postulates of the Water Framework Directive, and executing the necessary actions to compensate for the historical neglect of the Ter River and its territory.

Thus, in this context, the Central Board of Users of the Baix Ter has been able to opt for a project -between 2018 and 2023- of specialization and territorial competitiveness in an operation for its consolidation, specialization and territorial projection (PECT Girona, Water Sensitive Region). It has also allowed it to sign a management entrustment agreement with the Catalan Water Agency -between 2019 and 2021- to carry out various studies related to the improvement of the Baix Ter groundwater body and the improvement of its water management.

REPLICATION POTENTIAL IN SUDOE REGION

In the area of the Spanish State, where the general legislation on water is the same, the possibilities of replication are direct. In the French and Portuguese geographical area, an in-depth study of its state regulations would be necessary to assess a potential direct replication. In any case, the type of benefits achieved by the JCUABT should be the same in the case of entities from other countries with similar objectives.

Key points of the innovative method

• The JCUABT is an example of cooperation between diverse user entities in the same territory
• The water need, the improvement in the efficiency of use of the resource and a protection of the socio-economic and environmental values group the interests of the users.
• The decisions taken by JCUABT are based on intense monitoring of surface and groundwater
• Advanced knowledge and political will together allow actors to coordinate hydrogeological management being a great example of governance.