http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/world/europe/03dry.html?pagewanted=1&hp

FORTUNA, Spain —Lush fields of lettuce and hothouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel vacation homes beckon buyers from Britain and Germany. Golf courses — 54 of them, all built in the last decade and most in the last three years — give way to the beach. At last, this hardscrabble corner of southeast Spain is thriving.

There is only one problem with the picture of bounty: this province, Murcia, is running out of water. Spurred on by global warming and poorly planned development, swaths of southeast Spain are steadily turning into desert.

Murcia, traditionally a poor farming region, has undergone a resort-building boom in recent years, even as many of its farmers have switched to more thirsty crops, encouraged by water transfer schemes, which have become increasingly untenable. The combination has put new pressures on the land and its dwindling supply of water.