Full reservoirs in Malaga province continue to release water following rains

Three of the seven in Malaga province are too small to hold all the water gained in the last couple of weeks and by Wednesday had discharged more than 50 million cubic metres; others continue to fill

SUR

Malaga.

Friday, 21 March 2025, 13:47

Water continues to pour into Malaga province's reservoirs from rain running off the surrounding mountains. However the recent uneven rainfall - it has rained more in the west than in the east - combined with the fact that some reservoirs are much bigger than others, leads to a perverse, frustrating situation.

Between 7 March and Wednesday this week, three of the seven local reservoirs had seen the equivalent amount of water for a year for the city of Malaga (some 590,000 people) discharged from their dams and flow out to sea.

There was some good news however from La Viñuela reservoir in the Axarquía to the east. This is the biggest in the province but it has been extremely low up to this year, meaning irrigation of crops with its water has been banned. But this week, despite La Viñuela only being 42% full, it had the most water in it of any Malaga province reservoir, due to its size.

La Concepción

Going back to those reservoirs that are too small to hold more, La Concepción, behind Marbella and serving the western Costa, had released 24 million cubic metres between 7 March and midday on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Conde de Guadalhorce, which is part of the network of reservoirs serving Malaga city, had released 21 million cubic metres since 9 March

Closer to the city, the smaller Casasola reservoir, which is there to control flow in the flood-prone Campanillas river area, from Saturday could no longer cope and five million cubic metres had been released by the middle of this week, forcing some people downstream to leave their homes for a time because of the risk. This Casasola dam is causing problems for the authorities who are working round the clock to remove blockages of sediment preventing a more controlled release. The total, therefore, discharged is over 50 million cubic metres across the reservoirs.

With those 'lost' reserves, local reservoirs would have upwards of 374 million cubic metres and not the 325 in them on Thursday this week. It is worth recalling that this time last year, the total amount in the province's reservoirs was a mere 113 million cubic metres when alarm bells were ringing over the low supply.

Axarquía drought

Particularly worrying has been the Axarquía's La Viñuela but this was up to 69 million cubic metres this week, up from a dangerous 16 million in March last year. The regional authorities will meet at the end of the month to decide if the drought in the Axarquía is officially over or not for households and for farmers, although the indications are they will be relaxing restrictions.

There are no simple solutions however to ensuring more of this rain water is captured in the reservoirs. For example, La Concepción by Marbella cannot be increased in size due to its location and pumping water from it to other parts of the Costa del Sol has been deemed unfeasible so far.

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