Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

Work on the expansion of the groundwater network has begun and will continue throughout the summer. These efforts will improve the systems in Alfons el Magnànim, Palau Reial, Eixample and Can Batlló to optimise irrigation resources.

The work is part of the Comprehensive Maintenance Plan, an offshoot of Barcelona’s Pla Endreça, and aims to make the city more resilient to exceptional drought conditions, such as those experienced in Catalonia over the last four years, in line with the objectives of the Climate Plan.

The main aims are to:

• Extend the groundwater network to serve high consumption areas.
• Adapt the capacity of the existing groundwater network to the needs of current and future users.
• Improve the remote management, monitoring and operation of the network from the Barcelona Cicle de l’Aigua control centre.

The project has an initial overall budget of €14.4 million and will increase the city’s available groundwater by 0.15 cubic hectometres, allowing an additional 21 hectares of green areas to be irrigated by the groundwater network.

In total, the groundwater network will irrigate 186 hectares of green areas in the city, reducing the consumption of potable water for irrigating parks and gardens by nearly 115,000 m³ per year.