Catalonia: Time of the signs
A dream destination for travellers across the globe, Barcelona and the wider Catalonia region are greeting visitors with a different list of buckets.
It’s not the kind of sign you expect — or want — to be greeted with upon landing.
Airport baggage claim areas and metro stops in Barcelona are prime advertising real estate, generally reserved for luring visitors into leaving more euros in the debit side of the local economy ledger: a rented car to explore the golden tones of the Catalan coast, a synchronized splash in an aquatic park, a tour of a football stadium where the best players in the world no longer play.
Most of the time, however, we’re too busy trying to detect signs of life from the baggage carousel or overhead screen to pay much attention to the same type of experience ads we’ve seen a thousand times elsewhere.
A big red bucket beneath “DROUGHT ALERT” in bold red letters, on the other hand — now that’s unignorable.
A sign awaiting visitors waiting for their baggage in Barcelona (El País)
Bone dry
“A practically bone-dry Catalonia,” wrote El País on February 1st, “has pressed the emergency red button for almost 80% of its population after 40 months of the worst drought the region has suffered on record.” With water reserves falling below 16%, “The climate crisis is putting us to the test like the pandemic,” said regional president Pere Aragonès.
This was the Catalan government declaring a state of emergency for drought in winter — not the height of summer. Surely there’s worse to come. With summers in this hot country arriving earlier and leaving later, the Spanish saying “Hasta el cuarenta de mayo no te quites el sayo” (Don’t store away your coat until May 40th, i.e. June 9th) is now obsolete.
“The situation in Barcelona would be far worse,” wrote Stephen Burgen in The Guardian, “were it not home to Europe’s largest desalination plant, built after the last serious drought in 2008, which supplies the city with 33% of its drinking water. A further 25% comes from recycled wastewater.”
Not all parts of Catalonia are as fortunate.
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