Public Project
Living under atmospheric pressure
We are in the west of Catalonia, in the Segrià region, in what they call Ponent, as if the sun were really setting. We have traveled along the A2, leaving behind the imposing silhouette of the Seu Vella de Lleida, and, shortly after passing Alpicat, we have turned left. We have crossed the Raimat castle and its endless vineyards that stretch to the horizon, followed by fields of corn. Finally, a walk with plane trees on both sides leads us to Gimenells. This will be the starting point of our route. We will pass through Mollerussa, bordering the Urgell Canal, and continue to the Siurana Reservoir, to end the journey in Barcelona. A journey accompanied by a persistent question: is the drought affecting people's mental health?
In recent years, psychologists have begun to study the impact of climate change on mental health. The most extensive research in this regard was carried out by the journal The Lancet in 2021. In a sample of ten thousand young people from ten countries around the world, three quarters of the responses considered that they saw the future as something "scary", and half declared themselves "sad", "anxious", "angry" and even "guilty" of the climate crisis. Among the most common environmental emotions is eco-anxiety, anxiety about the future of nature; solastalgia, or the nostalgia that affects those who witness the degradation of their environment, and ecoparalysis, that is, the inability to act in the face of planetary drift. But there is also talk of an increase in eutheria, that is, a feeling of reunion and union between human beings and nature.
These are, yes, times of climate change, but in our environment there have always been droughts. “Although it is a defining phenomenon of the Mediterranean climate, with climate change there is a lot of evidence that it becomes a more extensive, more intense event, which puts the water system under strain”, says Marc Prohom, head of the climatology area of the Meteorological Service of Catalonia. “In fact, this drought, compared to the last one in 2008, stands out for being more acute
and more persistent. Furthermore, we must think that this will be an increasingly frequent trend. There are even studies that indicate that in the next fifty years water will be reduced by 20% in Catalonia”, he concludes.
A farming sector projected towards the future
To understand what is happening in Catalonia, we decided to undertake this journey. Let’s start with the sector that has suffered the most from the restrictions due to the drought: agriculture. In Gimenells and Pla de la Font, the municipality of departure, we are welcomed by Santi Capdevila, from the Unió de Pagesos union. He is a man of strong character, but serene, with the baggage of three generations of farming behind him. “Agriculture in Catalonia is marked by canals. If it weren’t for the canal, with these hard lands that we have, with so much salt, this would be a desert. From Lleida to Zaragoza no one would live there”, he explains. Despite this, he insists: “Climate change is a reality. But you only have two options: complain every day or, as my parents and grandparents did, adapt to the changes”. When we ask him about the drought, he answers confidently: “It is not a problem of drought, it is a problem of short-sightedness. The concerns do not come from the drought itself, but from the lack of planning of the administrations, which do not allow us to do what we should already be doing: adapt minimally to the current situation”.
After the conversation, we got in the car and continued towards Mollerussa (Pla d’Urgell). Here, in April 2023, the Urgell Canal was closed due to the lack of rain, which had left the Oliana and Rialb reservoirs below minimum. The drought forced the General Community of Irrigators of the Canals d’Urgell to make a drastic and unprecedented decision in the 161-year history of the canal: to close the tap. This measure affected more than 70,000 hectares of crops. “Nobody here believed it, they thought it was a false rumor, but I saw it coming, because the reservoirs were getting worse and worse,” recalls Francesc Vallvedrú, a farmer on a cereal and fruit farm a few meters from the canal. “Either we modernize or we will find ourselves one year with the canal open and the next with the canal closed, because there is not enough water to spray all the hectares with the crops we have. And there are still many farms that depend only on the canal, without any well, no pond or drip irrigation”.
While he talks, he shows us the canal, right next to his land, and the apples, which once harvested must be protected from the sun, since, even though it is September, it could still burn them. We say goodbye and continue on our way. The direction is now towards the sea, and we pass by the Siurana reservoir (in Priorat), which has dropped below 9% of its capacity in recent days. One of the folds of the reservoir has become a large green meadow, and in the center structures that were previously submerged emerge. It is hard to imagine what it was like when it was full. We continue on our way. When we enter the Garraf, we arrive at Cubelles. Here we met with Ricard Huguet, national coordinator of Youth of the Farmers' Union. However, due to the drought, Huguet is a farmer who does not work his land. The pipeline that brought water to him is broken and he cannot access it to fix it. That is why he is working as a contractor for other farms. “The only thing I take out are carobs, because the carob tree is the most adapted tree there is. Whether it rains or not, it always produces some,” he says, while showing me the only plant on the plot that has fruit. According to him, the carob will be “the salvation from hunger in the world”. We sit and talk, surrounded by his seven dogs. We ask him if the drought makes him anxious. The answer is also dry: “Of course”. But the climate crisis and the lack of water are also linked, for him, to the economic model. “It will rain tomorrow, but what we have to look at carefully is the economic model. That does generate anxiety”. And, looking at his carob tree, he says: “There is no other place that is safe from all this. I live here. We will adapt here”.
We continue to Barcelona. Between the winding roads of the Trinitat junction and the blocks of Ciutat Meridiana, we pass the machinery used to prepare a new urban development and enter a rural space apparently trapped between Barcelona and Santa Coloma de Gramenet. Here is the farm known as La Ponderosa, the last piece of agricultural land that survives in the city, leaving aside the Collserola mountain. Carles Zaragoza, the last farmer in Barcelona, is in charge of it. He looks after this land, which, he says, belongs to the real estate company Solvia. “The drought hasn’t affected me much because we have always had water from the Rec Comtal. Also, in 1984 I installed the drip irrigation system and everyone told me I was crazy, but I knew that the water wouldn’t last forever. And now everyone has one, and those who didn’t have one no longer work,” he explains with determination. “Climate change? I’m a little worried, yes, because the plants notice it. But we’re used to adapting.”
“We have to adapt” is a refrain that resonates when talking to farmers. “When they talk about it, they are very similar to nature. They have the same spirit of adaptation, resilience, silent respect and acceptance. In addition, they are fully aware of the difficulties they have suffered over the years, how their crops have been punished by the heat and lack of water. But they don’t give up, they adapt and find solutions,” explains Matteo Innocenti, psychiatrist at the Italian Association of Climate Change Anxiety, who has carried out an analysis of environmental emotions in the Catalan context through a questionnaire and in-depth interviews for the journalistic project Resilience in the Era of Climate Change. This initiative compares the context of the drought in Catalonia with that of the floods in Italy and analyses human reactions to water imbalances.
“The effects on mental health vary depending on the type of climate event, as well as its duration and the way it manifests itself”, explains Innocenti. “In Catalonia, where the impact of the drought is constant and chronic, anxious-depressive symptoms appear that often do not reach the clinical threshold. However, the true psychological impact of climate change is related to an increase in levels of solastalgia, an emotional state that manifests itself when a person perceives that their natural environment is changing
A more anxious city
If in the rural world the importance of acclimatization dominates, in cities, where extreme events are experienced differently, the climate cause also makes itself felt. Entering the self-managed urban garden La Bardissa, we are welcomed by Jaume Sánchez and Rosa Pérez, activists from the Ribera-Salines Platform. This space was occupied in 2021 as an action against the urban development plan included in the Ribera-Salines strategic residential area (ARE), which foresees the construction of up to 2,497 homes in the last non-urban area of Cornellà de Llobregat (Baix Llobregat). Among the different protest actions of the platform against the urban development project, it was decided to occupy this space, which was completely abandoned and full of brambles. It is now a neighborhood, community and self-managed meeting place, and, according to our hosts, “people heal a lot in contact with nature. Once it has been through here, it comes out happier and more content.”
But, on the other hand, the anxiety about the drought is also present: “Of course it is scary, but, also, if there is absolute environmental aggression, we have to save the last bit that we have left,” says Rosa Pérez. Jaume Sánchez, who has a degree in biological sciences but has decided to become a salaried worker on an agroecological farm, clarifies: “I am not afraid that one day we will not have water when we turn on the tap; but I am afraid that the landscape will change radically and there will be more fires or less local food because there is not enough water.” Both emphasize that the drought has given more arguments to their demands: “This is an area of aquifers, and they are pumped to the Sant Joan Despí water treatment plant. If we load it on top, we will have even less water,” concludes the activist.
They are not the only ones who have suffered some form of climate stress. This is also the case for Sara Santana, an activist for End Fossil, and Maria Serra, former spokesperson for Fridays For Future. “Although it was predictable, when the drought restrictions were imposed it did affect me. It worried me because before turning off the tap on tourism they did it on agriculture, which is our food”, stresses Serra. “Initially I consumed a lot of news, I constantly looked at the state of the reservoirs. And I was very anxious. Little by little, I almost got used to it, because the situation did not change. And it seemed very strong to me to have gotten used to a drought”, explains Santana, who stresses one of the effects of the chronicity of the drought.
The search for collective solutions
But the causes and effects of the drought are not only environmental, they also have an important political charge: “There are two causes of this drought: on the one hand, the lack of rain and the climate crisis, and, on the other, as the Aigua és Vida partners explain, a water management that refuses to admit that reality has changed structurally,” explains Dani Pardo, spokesperson for the Barcelona Neighborhood Assembly for Tourist Decline, a platform that opposes the city model centered on tourist monoculture. His fight is not purely environmental, but Pardo does recognize that this aspect has a notable presence in his speech: “Initially, we did not incorporate the climate aspect into the criticism we made. We talked about pollution and emissions. But we immediately realized that it was there, although not explicitly. And, if you ask me today, I will tell you that it is very important and is a strong argument to change this totally crazy tourism model”. This is precisely where his criticism is directed: “When the drought restrictions were announced, it affected me very psychologically and I got very angry. It was a very shameless mockery of comparative grievances. They lectured you while the farmers complained, but tourism was the ‘spoiled child’ because no restrictions were applied to it”.
All these emotions are reflected in Innocenti's analysis: “When people speak, the central emotion is solastalgia: they suffer deeply, existentially and in terms of identity due to the changes that human action and climate change are causing in their territory”. And the expert and technical voices also see their mood altered by the situation. “I have the feeling that we have been repeating the same thing for ten years and none of the political actors is acting clearly. Only when there is an emergency do we all rush to it. It is a somewhat frustrating feeling”, explains Prohom.
“The cause of climate change is capitalism”, repeat, each with different nuances but with the same conviction, several people interviewed on this journey from Ponent to Barcelona. And not only that. Dani Pardo, Sara Santana, Maria Serra, Jaume Sánchez and Rosa Pérez also agree on some recipes for dealing with these discomforts and problems: doing it collectively. “Being an activist has allowed me to feel heard and understood”; “creating communities, weaving networks, looking for alternatives is the opposite of capitalism, which individualizes and isolates us”; “facing problems collectively is much more efficient than doing it alone”. These are arguments that resonate. All of this is accompanied by a determined desire to remain where we live despite the climate crisis: “This is the environment where I grew up, and I feel that I could not do what I do anywhere else”. In this way, by intertwining solidarity and roots, new forms of resilience in the face of climate change emerge, which are not content with surviving, but rather want to build a more viable future for everyone.
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