Spain's longest river is on the verge of completely drying up

The longest river in Spain is at risk of completely drying up due to an ongoing drought in the country.

The 626-mile-long Tagus river, which begins in northern Spain and flows through Madrid before flowing into the sea at Lisbon, Portugal, is reportedly under threat due to a combination of climate change, water transfer and the waste Madrid produces.

Nuria Hernández-Mora, a founding member of the Foundation for a New Water Culture, said: “All of these problems derive from designing a water transfer from the headwaters of a river, overestimating the available resources and joining two areas with similar climate cycles.

“The transfer has served to create social and political conflict and turn the Tagus into one of the rivers in the worst ecological state in the peninsula.”

The water from the Tagus is also used to supply the six million residents of Madrid, as well as cooling nuclear reactors.

Environmental lawyer María Soledad Gallego said Spain needs to think again about how it uses the river for economic factors.

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She said: “We need to face reality and deal with the environmental implications.

“In the south-east agriculture is subsidised in the form of water transfers. They depend on there being a water surplus in other parts of the country and so they are always going to have problems.

“They need to live with the reality of what the Segura and Tajo basins can provide.”