Spain’s landscape is increasingly being shaped by the extremes of climate change severe droughts and catastrophic floods creating a paradox in which citizens are struggling to access water while multinational companies continue to profit by extracting and selling it. This troubling trend is especially evident in areas like Valencia, where devastating floods recently claimed over 200 lives. Amid the chaos, residents faced not only the destruction of homes and infrastructure but also a lack of clean drinking water.
As floodwaters inundated buildings and streets, communities were left without electricity, basic supplies, or potable water. Emergency tanks and donations of bottled water became lifelines for the hundreds of thousands affected. Within two weeks, authorities managed to restore water to most of the impacted areas, but residents were still advised to boil the water or rely on bottled alternatives. Meanwhile, the flood also wreaked havoc on the region’s sanitation systems, with sewage treatment plants damaged and pollution contaminating the floodwaters. The situation in Valencia is a ticking time bomb, poised to escalate into a full sanitation crisis.
However, the flood was not an isolated event but part of a broader pattern of extreme weather that has plagued Spain in recent years. Just months before the floods, the region had been enduring severe drought conditions, with soaring temperatures and a lack of rain that drained reservoirs and groundwater supplies. These extremes prolonged drought followed by torrential downpours are being linked to the larger shifts in the planet’s climate patterns. Despite the deluge in Valencia, much of the region, like the mountains of Catalonia, continues to suffer from severe water scarcity.
Roser Albó Garriga, a farmer from Catalonia, has watched as these unpredictable weather events have wreaked havoc on her crops. While areas around Barcelona may receive heavy rainfall, her farm has been left dry for years. The land simply cannot absorb the torrents of rain that sometimes fall, and instead, the water rushes to the sea, doing little to replenish the parched landscape. “These rains don’t solve our water shortages,” she explains. “They just cause damage, and most of the water ends up where it’s not needed.”
Meanwhile, some of Spain’s biggest water-bottling companies remain largely unaffected by these local water crises. Multinational corporations like Nestlé and Danone continue to pump millions of liters of water from the same aquifers that sustain local communities. Across Catalonia, where water bottling is a major industry, the situation has become particularly striking. In a region that has the highest concentration of water extraction plants in the country, 27 licenses have been granted for companies to draw from local sources. For many residents like Roser, this practice feels like a betrayal.
Roser’s family has lived in their Catalan farmhouse for decades, but over time, they’ve watched the once-abundant springs in the area dry up. Her mother, Rosita, recalls a time when water flowed freely from the hills, but now the water-bottling plants are taking more than ever. Six such plants are located within a 10-mile radius of their home, with trucks transporting the precious resource away to be bottled and sold both domestically and internationally. “It’s maddening,” says Roser. “We can’t even drink from our own land anymore. And yet, the companies keep extracting water, shipping it off, and selling it back to us in plastic bottles.”
To cope, Roser now spends €67 a month purchasing bottled water brands like Viladrau and Font Vella, which are produced by the very companies depleting local water reserves. Her family’s farm, once a source of self-sufficiency, now struggles to grow enough crops due to the ongoing droughts. “We’re being drained in more ways than one,” she laments. “Water is a basic need, and yet it’s being sold to us by companies who profit off of the scarcity they help create.”
As Spain’s water crisis deepens, the question arises: how much longer can multinational corporations continue to extract and bottle this vital resource while local communities are left to struggle? With both droughts and floods becoming more frequent, the future of Spain’s water security hangs in the balance, and the growing anger of citizens may eventually push for a reevaluation of how water is managed and distributed.
