Water and maps. com
Esri Spain has launched an interesting campaign for World Water Day, with the presentation of the website aguaymapas.com in a newsletter that we slightly trastocamos in this article.
"On the occasion of World Water Day from Esri Spain we want to show how the drought of these last months is affecting our water resources. We believe that seeing the environmental reality and its evolution, as well as the scarcity of reserves, on a map, can help citizens to become aware of the situation we live in and take appropriate measures in terms of the management of this resource "
Diego Hidalgo, responsible for Environment of Esri Spain.
Interesting identification with a cause that should concern us all. With the 2012 motto: The World is thirsty because we are hungry, After the driest winter of the last 70 years, aguaymapas.com we offer a series of specially designed maps to show the current situation in Spain, with the aim of helping us to become aware of the reality and the need to manage it properly.
The sources used for the elaboration of the water map, aguaymapas.com, come from the public data of the State Agency of Meteorology, Hydrological Bulletin published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment and Embalses.net.
The map offers several different themes: Water Reserves; Winter rainfall; Total rainfall; Analysis of the Aridity in the last 70 years;Submerged towns of Spain y Water consumption.
Water Reserves
On the map we can see the Water Reserves, Which analyzes the current situation of Spanish reservoirs.
The map includes the classification of the reservoirs based on the volume of water they currently store, a comparison of the current situation with respect to 2011 and the average obtained in recent years, as well as information on the storage capacity of the reservoirs.
Among the data that we can obtain from the map, we can see that in typically humid areas such as Galicia, the Cantabrian Mountains or the Western Pyrenees, the water reserves are at very low levels. While in the reservoirs of Extremadura or in the Guadalquivir Valley, the reservoirs are at 70% of their capacity.
The data are taken from the Hydrological Bulletin published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment.
Evolution of the Winter Precipitations in the last twelve years
The map includes the evolution of accumulated rainfall during the months of February between the years 2000 and 2012 with data from the State Meteorological Agency.
In the map we can find the following data: the fall precipitations during the month of February of 2012 have been the lowest of the last years. In typically humid areas such as Galicia or in high mountain areas where the accumulation of snowfall (Pyrenees) is normal at this time, precipitation has been practically non-existent.
The map incorporates a raster image that reflects in gradual colors the distribution of rainfall in Spain and its temporal evolution.
Evolution of Total Annual Precipitation since 1921
In the map we can see an analysis of the accumulated rainfall during the first year of each decade from 1921, with data obtained from the State Meteorological Agency.
Although in the years analyzed rainfall has a more or less cyclical trend, it can be observed how in the southern third of the Iberian peninsula is becoming more common the succession of dry years.
The map incorporates a raster image that analyzes the distribution of precipitations throughout the Spanish geography through gradual colors and a reproduction table that allows to identify the pluviometric records in the 10 analyzed temporal milestones.
Analysis of the Aridity in Spain in the last 70 years
In the map we can see the analysis of climatic aridity in Spain between 1931 and 2011. This allows to obtain data on the process of water depletion in the soil and moisture in the air (desertification). The data has been obtained from the State Meteorological Agency.
The data obtained show that, with the exception of the Autonomous Community of Galicia, aridity values are increasingly accused.
It highlights how the strip of areas with higher levels of humidity has been reducing in the last decades, indicative of the desertification process in the Peninsula.
The calculation depends on the relationship between precipitation and temperature. The method used to calculate this was the Knoche's aridity index (Ik): Ik = n * P / (100 * (T + 10)).
Pueblos submerged in Spain
This informative map shows some towns of Spain that were submerged by the waters due to the construction of a marsh or reservoir. Data has been obtained from Embalses.net.
For this map, a presentation has been designed using ArcGIS Explorer Online, a highly interactive application developed with Microsoft Silverlight.
It seems to us an interesting effort of visibility both of what can be done with privative technologies and of adding to the awareness of issues of global interest.