Negratín water for the Almanzora: Spanish government to propose the legal maximum of 50 cubic hectometres in 2026
The Spanish government will propose that the Negratín-Almanzora transfer reach its legal maximum this year, 50 hm³: double what reached the Cuevas reservoir in 2025.
Automatic translation: this article was translated with artificial intelligence from the original in Spanish. Read the original
The Negratín-Almanzora water transfer could carry up to 50 cubic hectometres of water to the Cuevas del Almanzora reservoir this year, the maximum set by the regulations. That is what the Spanish government will propose at the next meeting of the Technical Management Committee (Comisión de Gestión Técnica), according to a parliamentary answer dated 7 September to written questions from PP MPs, which Europa Press reported on Sunday.
And that water does not stay in Cuevas. The infrastructure is managed by Aguas del Almanzora, a company belonging to the Junta Central de Usuarios del Valle del Almanzora (the Almanzora Valley Central Users’ Board), under an agreement with the state-owned company Acuamed. According to its website, it supplies irrigation for 24,000 hectares and water for the Almanzora Valley, as well as public water supply to several municipalities. Back in 2018, when authorising a transfer, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition explained that those volumes would make it possible to cover “the water supply of a group of towns located in the Almanzora valley”.
The pipeline, 120 kilometres long and in service since 2004, has seven regulating ponds. In El Hijate (Alcóntar), next to pond number 2, at an altitude of 989 metres, Aguas del Almanzora planned another one of 0.96 hm³ to guarantee irrigation and public water supply during the two or three months when the transfer is cut off, without pumping the water from Cuevas, at 130 metres, according to the BOE (Spain’s Official State Gazette) in March 2024.
Five years with almost no transfer
The ordinary transfer had been halted since 7 July 2021, when the Negratín fell below 210 hm³ and the Guadalquivir’s general regulation system dropped below 30%, the two limits set by Law 55/1999. Since then, what reached the Almanzora were volumes from rights assignment contracts and exchanges managed by Aguas del Almanzora:
- 2022: 5.04 hm³
- 2023: 5.68 hm³
- 2024: 18.23 hm³
- 2025: 24.46 hm³
The legal conditions were met again on 7 February 2026 and, on the 27th, the Technical Management Committee authorised an immediate transfer of 45 hm³, with up to 7 reserved for public water supply. The ceiling of 50 now proposed by the government is double everything that arrived in 2025.
A Negratín with reserves
The source reservoir is playing its part. On Sunday the Negratín held 338 hm³, 59% of its capacity, at its best in years thanks to the rains at the start of the year, according to La Voz de Almería. Well above the 210 required by law.
In its answer, the government adds that the infrastructure is operating normally and has no technical need for expansion or modernisation. The final say on the 2026 volume will lie with the Technical Management Committee at its next meeting.
