Government mishandling of Tajo-Segura aqueduct cuts water supply to Alicante for months
A break in the Tajo-Segura aqueduct will halt water transfers to Alicante for up to five months, affecting roughly a million residents.
Mid-September inspections revealed a major collapse in the Tajo-Segura aqueduct, prompting the Confederación Hidrográfica del Tajo to announce a repair period of four to five months. The shutdown blocks the monthly transfer of water to Alicante, jeopardising the water needs of about a million city dwellers and agricultural lands that depend on the canal. Urban water providers will have to increase output from desalination plants, raising energy costs.
The government has not presented any technical workaround for the lost flow. Regional officials, including the delegate in Murcia, are demanding daily action from the Ministry for the Transition Ecological to accelerate the work, while the water basin authority continues to assess the timeline.
Why it matters
The prolonged water cut threatens domestic supply and farming in a densely populated region of Spain.
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