In Las Tablas de Daimiel in the central plains, water scarcity has already changed the landscape. The now useless boat lies in wetlands where fish and crabs once provided a living for 300 families. Now, the people and most of the lagoons are gone.

Spain combines many factors that put water supplies at risk -- a dry Mediterranean climate, thirsty agriculture, tourism, rapid construction and low public awareness of environmental issues. This year's drought adds to strains built up last year, the driest year in more than a century.

A report by environmental group WWF says Spain is the developed country most at risk from drought and desertification.

This summer just 20 of the 1,800 hectares (4,500 acres) of Las Tablas de Daimiel were flooded, and only thanks to wells pumping water from underground. Both rivers feeding the wetlands were dry.

Red-crested pochards that usually breed here are absent and otters have decamped to a nearby reservoir, says guide Santiaga Molina. Only the reeds are thriving.

NOT JUST DROUGHT

"The mixture of salty water from the Giguela river and fresh water from the Guadiana is what made Las Tablas unique among wetlands in La Mancha," she says.

The Giguela river is seasonal and typically dry in summer anyway, while the Guadiana is fed by an aquifer stretching across the region.

Close to Las Tablas, ornithologist and ecologist Jose Manuel Hernandez jumps out of his car and spreads his arms in a parched field of stubble.

"This is where the Guadiana was. In some parts it was 1 km wide," he says pointing out remains of a bridge on what used to be river bank.

But Las Tablas is not dry just because of drought, says Carlos Ruiz, director of the Las Tablas national park.

"There have always been droughts, but the Guadiana had always flowed. In 1986, the river stopped," he said.

"The basic problem is overexploitation of the aquifer and it's clear that's due to agriculture."

Traditional farming in the Castilla-La Mancha region focused on unirrigated vines and olives, but in the 1970s and 1980s the government encouraged farmers to switch to more intensive crops to improve earnings and keep them on the land.

Farmers drilled wells and the aquifer nourished alfalfa, maize and sugar beet. But soon the aquifer began to shrink.

Since then, the regional water board and government have tried to control wells and curb the amount of water coming out. The European Union has funded schemes to save the wetlands but to no avail.

Ruiz says the aquifer has lost 3,000 cubic hectometres of its estimated 8,000 cubic hectometre reserves.

Jose Maria Onate, who farms 40 hectares (99 acres) of vines in Alameda de Cervera in the centre of the aquifer 50 km (30 miles) from Las Tablas, says it is probably more.

"In my opinion we've used more than 50 percent of the aquifer," says Onate, who coordinates water policy in Castilla- La Mancha for farming union COAG.

When Onate's father drilled his well in 1974 there was water around 20 metres below ground. When it dropped to 40 metres the Guadiana stopped flowing, and now the water is at 58 metres.

"The aquifer stops at 90 metres where there's a thick layer of clay. Below that, there's a deeper (aquifer) from the Jurassic period that does not regenerate," Onate says.

Tapping Jurassic water for crops would be barbarous, he says, but does not rule it out.

STRICT CONTROLS

Onate and his union want irrigation to be controlled, both to save the aquifer and to protect small farmers in the face of bigger producers who, he says, are more wasteful with water.

Alfalfa and maize have gradually given way to less thirsty crops like melon, peppers and garlic in this area as farmers try to cut the cost of diesel for their irrigation pumps. Traditional vineyards are now irrigated, albeit sparingly.

Onate's well is legal and has a meter, but no one has ever come to read it.

"We have to accept that water is a scarce resource and that we should look after it and be efficient," says COAG's regional Secretary General Jose Rodriguez Villareal. "We are very concerned because droughts are becoming more frequent and rainfall less and less."

The WWF warned in a recent report that by 2070 about three-quarters of Spain will suffer water stress -- defined as drawing more water from resources than is being replaced.

"Half a century of large dam and water transfer projects have not stopped Europe's thirstiest country becoming thirstier, partly as a result of mismanagement and subsidies for profligate agricultural water use," it says.

"Tourism in the Mediterranean has not only become more prevalent, it has become much thirstier as it caters to homebuyers and golfers."