Campo de Dalías and the “Almeria miracle”: a cautionary tale of the value of water in agriculture

Renowned for having one of the highest concentrations of greenhouses in the world, Campo de Dalías, located in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula, in the southwest of the province of Almeria in Spain, offers a compelling case for understanding the evolution of how water has been valued and managed in agriculture. The region’s trajectory, from the discovery of groundwater in the 1940s, through its subsequent overexploitation, degradation, and eventual depletion, ultimately led to the adoption of water-efficient practices and the use of desalinated water for irrigation today. Here, we first investigate whether these advances in agricultural practices have increased water efficiency to levels at which water use can absorb the increased cost of sourcing it from desalination and then evaluate whether an earlier investment in these practices could have prevented the depletion of the region’s water resources. The findings demonstrate that efficiency improvements alone do not necessarily reduce total water consumption, while the lack of effective regulation of groundwater abstraction to ensure withdrawals remained below natural recharge rates meant that efficiency improvements may, at best, have delayed rather than avoided aquifer depletion. This outcome is consistent with a paradox known as the rebound effect, whereby efforts to conserve water can inadvertently enable the intensification of agricultural production, a counterintuitive consequence of efficiency improvements. The study offers valuable insights for policymakers and agricultural stakeholders facing similar challenges, highlighting the critical need for informed, integrated, and holistic participatory governance to achieve water security in an era of increasing scarcity.