Lleida's agricultural sector is facing a growing water scarcity crisis, with climate change set to expand cultivable areas for crops like alfalfa and almonds in the Pyrenees and oranges in Les Garrigues, according to a new report. However, exploiting these new areas will often be unviable due to a lack of irrigation infrastructure or insufficient water resources.
“Climate change can significantly affect the distribution of crops in Catalonia and generate structural changes in production,” concludes the report, 'Modelling the impacts of climate change on the potential cultivation area and water deficit in five Mediterranean crops'. The document, prepared by experts for the consultancy Espigall, has raised concerns among water and agricultural stakeholders by projecting a 16% increase in crop water needs across Catalonia by 2031-2050. This forecast more than doubles the previous estimate of 7%.
This year highlights the uncertainty surrounding water resources. While reservoir levels are abundant, exceeding 85%, snow reserves have fallen to drought levels after a record-breaking winter. The report, based on mathematical analyses of climatic and agronomic data, focuses on two key aspects of climate change: rising temperatures and reduced rainfall. These predictable changes create a critical scenario for the viability of rainfed cereals in the plains and make it difficult to introduce other crops like fodder, fruit, almonds, and olives in mid-mountain and Pyrenean areas. The climate will become suitable, but the scarcity, often absence, of irrigation infrastructure complicates intensive farming.
Shifting Crop Landscapes
“The shift towards warmer winter and summer conditions will not reduce the viability area of any of the crops,” the report states. It predicts this evolution “will allow some to be grown in areas historically too cold for them,” provided that “water demands are met.” In the Pyrenees, “some Mediterranean crops may become new and interesting options,” although “some varieties will need irrigation due to the new Mediterraneanisation of the area.”
Almond cultivation could expand by 19.4% of the land, olives by 7.2%, and oranges by 12.2%. This climatic shift will make almonds viable in most of La Noguera and El Solsonès, olives in Alt Urgell and Pallars, where adaptation efforts are already underway, and oranges in Les Garrigues. These predictions come with caveats, such as the need for “late-flowering varieties” of almonds in the mountains that “can adapt to slightly colder conditions,” or “hybrids adapted to shorter seasons.” It also notes that “olives will remain suitable as a rainfed crop in 41.8% of the territory,” despite “a 15.4% increase in areas where irrigation would be mandatory.” Barley could grow across the entire province, except for the highest areas of Aran, Pallars Sobirà, and Alta Ribagorça, though it would not survive without irrigation in the plains.
Alfalfa will see greater penetration but similar risks. “45% of the land” currently dedicated to barley “will require irrigation,” a rate expected to increase. This, the report notes, “will lead to a fall in productivity in many of the areas that require irrigation” due to the low economic margin of its cultivation. “It is often not worth irrigating it,” as is already the case in eastern Lleida. Intensive barley cultivation will require irrigation on 75% of the surface where it can grow, and “rainfed soils will presumably be less productive for alfalfa compared to the current situation.” Rainfed, in this context, refers to the plains and parts of the Pre-Pyrenees. “Most crops will be viable in more extensive areas, but the new higher altitude and rainier areas (...) will not fully compensate for the increase in areas where irrigation will be mandatory,” the report concludes. “All crops will have more potential cultivation area, but will depend more on irrigation availability.”
Rising Temperatures and Reduced Rainfall
The Espigall report on climate change impacts in Catalonia’s main crops outlines a scenario of rapidly rising temperatures, exceeding what experts consider acceptable, and a significant reduction in rainfall. These effects are not limited to agriculture. The study's maps predict arid conditions in parts of Alt Pirineu and Aran, and also an intensification of impacts already felt by the population. According to reports from the Carlos III Health Institute, 167 people died in Lleida due to heat between 2021 and 2025, averaging 33 deaths per year, with a range of 23 to 51. In the previous five-year period, from 2016 to 2020, the average was 25, with a range of 17 to 41. These figures indicate that global warming is already causing intense local impacts on public health.
Studies by climatology and public health experts suggest a likely worsening of these effects rather than any attenuation. In Lleida, which has two climatic zones, inland and mountain, forecasts for the plains point to much warmer summers and autumns, with average warming of 1.9ºC and 1.7ºC for the 2031-2050 period, and increases of 1.2ºC in both winter and spring. Temperature rises will be higher in the Pyrenees, with a 1.9ºC increase in summer, 1.8ºC in autumn, and 1.4ºC in winter. These increases follow earlier rises of between 0.6ºC and 0.9ºC in the plains during the second decade of the century, and 0.7ºC to 0.9ºC in the Pyrenees. The combined effect, leading to mid-century increases of almost 3ºC in summer in both zones and 1.8ºC and 2.1ºC in winter in the plains and Pyrenees, locally surpasses the global alerts from the UN's IPCC climate change panel, which considers a 2ºC warming between 1850 and 2100 unsustainable.
Precipitation forecasts vary by season, with decreases of 1.1% in the plains and 1.8% in the Pyrenees in winter, and ranges of -8.9% to -11.5% in the inland area and -8.4% to -9.3% in the mountain area for the remaining seasons. This evolution of heat and rain will intensify processes that have already begun. In terms of temperatures, “the warm coastal zone will advance inland” as mountain regimes recede, which will be more noticeable in summer, the document indicates. From a humidity perspective, it notes, the “semi-arid Mediterranean regime will expand from the interior towards the coast as humid regimes recede notably towards higher altitudes.” There will be “a substantial increase in the subtropical thermal regime and a drastic reduction in cold and temperate maritime regimes,” and the semi-arid Mediterranean humidity regime will be “the most common regime in the future scenario.”
