Amount of water stored in Malaga province reservoirs continues to soar: these are the current levels

Reserves are rising well above 320 million cubic metres despite the fact that La Concepción, Conde, Encantada and Casasola are releasing water for various reasons

Chus Heredia

Malaga

Wednesday, 19 March 2025, 23:27

Since Andalucía Day on 28 February the reservoirs in Malaga have been making use of runoffs to relieve themselves of excess water, either by choice or necessity and the levels for many rivers have hopped in and out of flood alerts. Just two examples of how Malaga once again demonstrates its yo-yo relationship with water. Periods of drought are followed by other periods of huge issues with flooding and overflows. It is the Mediterranean climate in its purest form. The downpour of water registered on Tuesday this week, together with all these factors, has led to an unprecedented rise in the province's reservoirs, and that's with four of them already releasing excess water.

At midnight on Monday night, the seven reservoirs in the province had a total of 295 million cubic metres. By nine o'clock on Tuesday morning they had exceeded 312. That is a gain of 17 million cubic metres in just a few hours. That is the annual consumption of over 250,000 people. An incredible figure in just a few hours and gives us the measure of how significant this is. When the readings were updated at six in the evening, they pointed to a gain of 25 million cubic metres. That is the equivalent of more than filling El Limonero reservoir in just three quarters of a day.

The curve is shooting upwards even in the reservoirs that are still open to collect water as well as those discharging excess, which SUR has been reporting on over the last week. Thus, La Concepción has been discharging since 7 March at midday, Conde de Guadalhorce has done the same, but intermittently, since 9 March, Casasola reached its spillway last Saturday and, in the Tajo de la Encantada, Endesa has been adjusting the sluice gates for days due to the floods feeding into the back dam.

Here are the numbers...

Casasola continues to increase the quantity of water being discharged and is on the verge of breaking its maximum level that is considered safe. It exceeded 115% of its capacity early on Tuesday morning. A crisis meeting was held to address the situation. It has never been so critical. By six o'clock in the evening it had finally managed to drop, but it was still above its maximum fill level. It had lost two million cubic metres and the volume stored stood at 23 million cubic metres.

The Conde de Guadalhorce reservoir had already greeted the dawn on Tuesday at 98% full and by late afternoon it was already close to 100%.

In turn, La Concepción reservoir, located between Marbella and Istán, has risen by two million cubic metres and is around 90% full. Some of its tributaries such as the Guadaiza had also burst their banks in the early hours of that morning.

The Guadalteba reservoir is heading towards 60 million cubic metres and La Viñuela, now with 63 million cubic metres, is about to move from the back of the pack to become the leading reservoir in Malaga province. The growth for the Guadalhorce has been more muted, currently at 37 million cubic metres.

Meanwhile, back to the reservoir that supplies Malaga city, El Limonero is much fuller than usual at 14 million cubic metres. It usually holds half or less than this quantity.

It is worth remembering that a few months ago only Conde, La Viñuela and Guadalhorce were at historic lows. The situation has changed but the decree to put an end to the drought will be issued bit by bit and by zone. The Costa del Sol is aiming for normality (no drought status), Malaga city will go to 'moderate', and Axarquia will probably improve from 'extreme' to 'severe', but these are matters to be reviewed by the Junta's drought committee, which is scheduled to meet at the end of this month or early April. It is not enough just to set new records for our reservoirs. They also have to be properly maintained at pre-determined times.

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