It’s raining in Madrid. This month has seen a record amount of rain, for Spanish standards, but after a very dry summer the city’s water supplies are still looking low. It is making me realise how lucky New Zealand and New Zealanders are. Our country doesn’t have centuries-old architecture or massive stores of oil. But we have plenty of that which is most basic: fresh air and water.

It’s raining now, but on the whole this is an incredibly dry city: it’s at 600 metres altitude and smack in the middle of a hot country. The dryness of the air actually hurt my nostrils during the first couple of weeks I lived here.

There has been talk recently of slapping fines on households whose daily water consumption exceeds 60 litres per person; the issue of water resources is a key consideration in planning new buildings.

I’ve been told not to bother visiting Madrid’s “river”. I will at some point, but after being told that it carries very little water and a lot of pollution, it’s not high on my list of things to see.

Yes, there was a heap of anxiety in New Zealand back in autumn over the potential for the lakes behind the hydro-electricity dams to run dry over winter and thus bring on the apocalypse. But I don’t think that actually eventuated, did it? And on the whole the country is blessed with big tall mountains creating wide rivers full of cold and clear and fairly clean water.

As our planet becomes more polluted New Zealand’s nature will become more and more valuable. There’s no substitute for water.

Other posts by Katie Llanos-Small