MALAGA WEATHER UPDATE Friday 6th June 2014: Its Friday so we should dig out that Friday feeling from wherever youve stored it.....even if your retired!!!.......To that weather we turn and for today!!!......Straight off we need to talk wind; there will be strong winds in many parts of the Province on and off today and these could become very strong up the likes of the Guadalhorce Valley, along the central Costa and to the far East, which tends to be more windy than calm this time of year!!!........The sun is to remain though with that threat of cloud coming in a band over night tonight although but as said yesterday, this is looking to break up. So no rain threat on the horizon but we remain vigilant!!!.......The weekend is now looking mighty fine and we must begin to raise a LFWW WARNING for high temperatures for both Saturday and Sunday as those thermometers will be up in the 30s across much of the province with the highest temperatures expect in Malaga itself and up the Guadalhorce as always!!!......Next week is also looking fine, cloud may be evident and it may be that we see that sea mist creep in along coast but if it does it wont be because its been forecast, merely it can happen with this heat. We may also, as a result of the heat, see cloud development due to humidity in the late afternoons through much of the week ahead!!!.......So, moving on; please accept my apologies for the length of todays post which I have, for once, broken down into a form of paragraphs by area, but I think we are going to extend into tomorrow on our chosen subject but I assure you it will finish then!!!......So, whilst reading this with one eye keep the other looking out for WILD FIRE please!!!.........Lets get back to the current education subject and that being our water supplies!!!......No recap today; if you havent kept up then thumb back through the last few weather updates and bring yourself up to speed!!!......Today we take each area and divulge the main water supplies for your local piped network. There was, many years ago, an amazing report on this very subject originally in the Spanish Sur Newspaper but translated in the Sur in English and to a great extent, nothing has changed since that report in 2008. So the Sur needs the gratification for bringing what comes next on our quest to explain our water sources to the public eye!!!......To start we head to Malaga City itself!!! MALAGA CITY: The city’s water network system is the most complex in the province, and rightly so!!!......The vast quantity of water required to provide this fine city with its supply is, as we have discovered, mainly from subterranean sources and the underground wells that provide much of the province’s water. The Rojas well in Churriana, which provides water at a rate of 100 litres a second and which feeds off the water from the Mijas mountains, is used all the year round. Other underground supplies are the Aljaima well in Cártama and the Fuente del Rey and Perales, on the lower Guadalhorce. The second main source is the reservoirs as mentioned before, the smaller of which are only available in winter months in times of rainfall causing fresh water to be diverted from appropriate rivers in to the reservoirs who, during heavy rainfall, have their gates closed to capture this source!!!......These seasonal reservoirs are used as much as possible because it is the most economical source and has little impact on the environment. In the 2008 report in the Sur they reported that water is taken from these sources from November to May at a rate of 2,500 litres per second. The network can be balanced from the Costas main reservoirs as well, again as previously discussed. The El Atabal desalination plant is a further point of supply cleaning the water from the salty Guadalhorce lakes, another subject previously discussed!!!........On top of all that, there remains a number of other small wells in the area which are managed by Urbanisations still but who have direct connections to the Municipal Supply therefore adding to the network!!!......Now I am not about to get into the realms of how an actual water supply network operates and maintains pressure as that would be well outside the subject of this Facebook page but what I will say is that when water is taken from a source, whether in City, Town or Village, it is initially fed to local district covered deposits and then taken from there as required!!! AXARQUIA: The AxarquÍa is the home of Malaga Provinces largest fresh water reservoir, La Vinuela!!!.......Of the 31 municipalities that makes up the Axarquía, 14 are connected to the coastal network and therefore the proximity to La Vinuela reservoir makes it there principal supply. These are towns located on the south side of the reservoir and who are connected to the coastal network, which include Vélez-Málaga, Rincón de la Victoria, Torrox, Algarrobo, Totalán, Moclinejo, Macharaviaya, Benamargosa, Benamocarra, Iznate, El Borge, Almáchar Cútar and Comares. All the afore mentioned municipalities also have wells of their own which, upon the construction of the reservoir, fell into disrepair with some of them not used for many years according to the Sur report of 2008. However, this trend is currently being reversed with the wells being re-commissioned and becoming usable again!!!.........The remaining 17 municipalities (Alfarnate, Alfarnatejo, Colmenar, Riogordo, Periana, Alcaucín, La Viñuela, Canillas de Aceituno, Canillas de Albaida, Arenas, Sayalonga, Sedella, Salares, Archez, Cómpeta, Frigiliana and Nerja) have other supply sources, mainly subterranean, although Nerja has adequate surface supplies from the Chillar river, although there are plans to extend the Costa del Sol Water Network right through to Nerja particularly as the construction of the Sewage Treatment Plant is now taking place......I must point out that at this time, Malaga Province does not recycle water from its Sewage Treatment for drinking purposes but does have a separate supply to the West of the City of Malaga to supply Golf Courses with Dirty Water for irrigation purposes!!!......Most major Citys of the world do recycle waste water for distribution back into the potable water system; London being a prime example where it is estimated thats its tap water has been recycled at least three times!!! THE GUADALHORCE VALLEY: The Sur report of 2008 just about summed up the water supplies of the Guadalhorce with there sub headline; A well in every town!!!......As I hope is becoming apparent, the villages up this valley are not fed from the Malaga Lakes!!!......All the water supplies in the Guadalhorce Valley are subterranean with the two underground reserves of the Sierra de Mijas, known locally as El Nacimiento, and the Río Grande providing most of the water for the towns and villages in the area. Alhaurín de la Torre, Alhaurín el Grande and Coín take their waters from the first of them. The second supplies Cártama and Pizarra. Alhaurin el Grande gets a further supply from the Alhaurín mountains (the other side of the Sierra de Mijas) And Alhaurin de la Torre is currently connecting to the Coastal Network!!!.......Álora also has wells but of poor quality as they are into the acquifer supplied by the Rio Guadalhorce but its main water source is from the Arroyo de la Ermita (surface water) situated close to El Chorro!!!........All the other villages above Coin and up in the foot hills of the Sierra de las Nieves benefit from wells and springs for their water!!! ANTEQUERA and the NORTH: Antequera benefits from the fresh waters of the El Torcal range, a natural fresh water drainage Karst System that comes to the surface and has been a protected area since the 1920s!!!.....The water that drains naturally into the ground feeds the largest Nacimiento known at this time, and therefore Antequera and its surrounding area gets its water from this source known as the La Villa. Villanueva de Cauche and Puerto del Barco take their water from the Las Pedrizas stream, while Almogía, Casabermeja and Villanueva de la Concepción take water from the El Puntal, in the southern part of El Torcal. Campillos takes its supply from the Sierra de Cañete la Real and Peñarrubia, while Archidona is supplied by subterranean reserves in the Umbral mountains called Conjuro and La Virgen de Gracia!!! And I think we need to take this into tomorrow, with tomorrow being the very last day on this subject in which we will talk about Ronda and the Eastern Costas and Gibraltar as well as sum up our supplies. I will also give links to points of reference for those who wish to review this subject deeper!!!.....As mentioned before, apologies for the length and do focus on the important task at hand, that being FIRE WATCH!!!......Jim Fraser for the Local Fire & Weather Watch Network on Facebook :)
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 05:30:26 +0000