Many went to the city You laughed near Barcelona in the 1970s, with the dream of owning a house with a large garden and swimming pool to enjoy the hot summers in comfort. But now that way of life is under threat as severe drought forces authorities to resort to increasingly stringent water conservation measures, such as restrictions on filling swimming pool.

Vakarises became known in the area for its many swimming pools. With a population of 7,000 and over 1,500 registered pools, there is one for every five inhabitantsalthough according to urban legend this number is many times higher.

A law expected to come into effect in the coming days will ban residents in the north-eastern region of Catalonia, where Vacarises is located, from refilling empty swimming pools even as unseasonably high temperatures signal that this summer will be as tough as last year, one of the warmest on record.

However, the law will not apply to public swimming pools, hotels or pools in large complexes, following pressure from local mayors, who argued that public pools are “climate shelters” in a country expected to experience increasingly hot summers.

Mayor Anthony Massana called the pool restrictions a “necessary measure” and said the city is pushing for new wells.

“Because of climate change, we are seeing less and less rain and water. What we need to do is to review, to adapt our model to a (new) reality,” Massana said.

Catalonia is one of the most arid regions in Spain, with some reservoirs at just 7% of capacity. This April was the warmest and driest in Spain since records began in 1961, according to the weather service AEMET.

Residents react: “Unfair stigmatization”

“If you go somewhere, people ask you where you’re from and when you say you’re from Vacarises, they say, ‘Oh, the city with 30,000 swimming pools,'” said Antonia Leon García, a resident of the area. “It’s getting annoying.”

While her pool has sat empty for five years since her children grew up, Garcia, 61, says the city is stigmatized unfair for the swimming pools there.

Most pools in the city rarely refill, and when they do, it’s usually with water brought in by aqueducts from areas outside the city, Garcia said. Swimming pools are the scapegoat for the lack of a coherent water management policy in Spain, she said. The authorities should invest in more units desalination and cleaning in order to complement the water reserves of the aquifer and reservoirs, he added.

This view is shared by Gonzalo Delacamara, director at the IE Center for Water and Climate Change in Madrid. While using water to fill a swimming pool during a drought is an irresponsible move, most water resources are consumed by the agricultural sector, accounting for 70% of water use, he said.

According to Delacamara, Spain has no central water management policy that can incentivize farmers to use more expensive desalinated water for irrigation, with decisions on water charges falling to municipal authorities. It’s a system that is “subject to huge changes during election periods when all the mayors promise cheaper water in the midst of climate change and drought,” he added.