• Is the water from the Tagus-Segura transfer expensive? Beatriz Larraz (UCLM), director of the UCLM-Soliss Tagus Chair, and Enrique San Martín (UNED), presented their study on transfer subsidies and rates.
• El vídeo de la conferencia, realizada en la sede de la Real Fundación de Toledo, el 21 de abril, dentro del ciclo de conferencias «Investigando el Tajo», está disponible en este link.

The Professors Enrique San Martín (UNED) and Beatriz Larraz (UCLM), belonging to the UCLM-SOLISS Tagus Chair They addressed, on April 21 in Toledo, the economic issues of the transfer: Is the water from the Tagus-Segura transfer expensive? Do the rates and subsidies comply with the legal principle of cost recovery? Have transfer rates really increased?

The Tagus-Segura transfer is one of the main hydraulic infrastructures in the country and, also, one of the most controversial. Normally, the controversy focuses on the volumes of water transferred: existence of surpluses in the basin to satisfy the demands of the Segura; difficulties in implementing ecological flows, legislative changes and application of exploitation rules, etc.

However, when regulations have to update rates, the controversy focuses on the economic factor. So, from the Segura basin, which receives the transferred water, there is constant talk that one cannot pay more for the transfer, that the transferred water is already very expensive and that the price of water in the Segura basin is most expensive in Spain. The existence of numerous subsidies and the relative evolution of tariffs is not usually mentioned in these debates.

This is the second conference of the cycle “Investigating the Tagus 2022”, organized by the UCLM-Soliss Tagus Chair with the collaboration of the Royal Foundation of Toledo.