Miguel Riopa / AFP - Getty Images

A fisherman sits by the border of the Portodemouros reservoir, some 60 km from Santiago de Compostela, Spain, on March 1. The reservoir has a low level of water due a prolonged drought.The driest winter in the last 40 years has raised red flags in Spain, where farmers face the threat of drought.

According to Terra Daily:

Miguel Riopa / AFP - Getty Images

A picture taken on March 1, shows the Portodemouros reservoir, near the village of Brocos, Spain.

At the beginning of 2011, water levels in Spain's reservoirs reached an average of 77.83% of total capacity. However, the lack of rain last year has now reduced the average to 62.01%. The droughts that Spain experiences year on year are one of the main concerns of agricultural workers who use up to 80% of a reservoir's water for their crops.

A new study at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT) has combined recorded data with the results from state-of-the-art regional climate change models to calculate the maximum length of droughts in detail.

The results, which have been applied to the Segura river basin, show how "drought periods since the 1980s onwards have notably intensified," according to Sandra Garcia Galiano, one of the authors of the study.

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Lluis Gene / AFP - Getty Images

Firemen extinguish a fire after clashes between students and policemen during a demonstration against austerity measures in Education on Feb. 29 in Barcelona. Students across Spain staged sit-ins and noisy demonstrations over crisis spending cuts, labour market reforms and recent police violence against protestors.

Albert Gea / Reuters

A man confronts hooded protesters who were vandalizing a bank during a protest against cuts in public education in Barcelona, on Feb. 29.

Jose Jordan / AFP - Getty Images

Students demonstrate to protest austerity measures in Education on Feb. 29 in Valencia. Students across Spain staged sit-ins and noisy demonstrations over crisis spending cuts, labor market reforms and recent police violence against protestors.

Spanish students in Barcelona clashed Wednesday with police and set fire to garbage containers during nationwide protests against education spending cuts.

Police said officers in riot gear charged a crowd outside the stock market in Spain's second largest city after protesters who had broken away from a peaceful rally of thousands threw rocks and other objects. Authorities made an unspecified number of arrests.

The fire in the containers spread to a car and protesters smashed a bank window.

The country is enduring steep austerity cuts and the prospect of recession as the government tries to stem an unemployment rate of almost 23 percent. Among those under age 25 it approaches a staggering 50 percent.

Read the full story.

-- Associated Press

Lluis Gene / AFP - Getty Images

Students burn a doll representing the death of the public university system in front of Barcelona's stock exchange during a student's demonstration against austerity measures in Education on Feb. 29 in Barcelona. Students across Spain staged sit-ins and noisy demonstrations over crisis spending cuts, labor market reforms and recent police violence against protestors.

Lluis Gene / AFP - Getty Images

Students clash with policemen during a demonstration against austerity measures in Education on Feb. 29 in Barcelona. Students across Spain staged sit-ins and noisy demonstrations over crisis spending cuts, labor market reforms and recent police violence against protestors.

Lluis Gene / AFP - Getty Images

Students protest during a demonstration against austerity measures in Education on Feb. 29 in Barcelona. Students across Spain staged sit-ins and noisy demonstrations over crisis spending cuts, labour market reforms and recent police violence against protestors.

Arturo Rodriguez / AP

An unidentified woman embraces judge Baltasar Garzon as he arrives at the Supreme Court in Madrid on Jan. 31, 2012. Garzon is sitting in the dock as a criminal defendant for allegedly overstepping his jurisdiction with a probe of right wing atrocities during and after the Spanish civil war.

The Associated Press reports from MADRID: 

The Spanish judge known for pioneering cross-border justice in cases of alleged crimes against humanity sat in the dock Tuesday as a criminal defendant and defiantly rejected charges he overstepped his jurisdiction by probing right wing atrocities during and after the Spanish civil war. 

Baltasar Garzon declined to take questions from his accusers, which are two right wing groups. Prosecutors say he committed no crime. This is a quirk of Spanish law: private citizens can seek to bring criminal charges against someone even if prosecutors disagree.

Garzon is perhaps best-known for indicting the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, having him arrested while Pinochet visited London in an ultimately failed bid to bring him to Madrid for trial. Read the full story.

Supporters of Garzon gathered outside the court, some holding photographs of people who were killed or disappeared during the rule of Gen. Francisco Franco.

Susana Vera / Reuters

A supporter of Baltasar Garzon holds a banner that reads "More judges like Garzon" during a protest outside Madrid's Supreme Court on Jan. 31, 2012.

Susana Vera / Reuters

A supporter of Baltasar Garzon takes photos next to pictures of alleged victims of Francoism during a protest outside Madrid's Supreme Court on Jan. 31, 2012.

Photos by Susana Vera / Reuters

A dog rests on a church pew before mass at San Anton Church in Madrid on Jan. 17, 2012.

The Associated Press reports that dogs, cats, rabbits and even turtles, many dressed in their finest, trooped into churches across Spain on Tuesday in search of a blessing on Saint Anthony's Day. Pet owners lined up around the block of the Church of San Anton in central Madrid behind blue metal barriers to wait for a priest to sprinkle holy water on their animals.

"In the name of San Anton, receive this blessing," the priest, decked out in white robes, said as he blessed the animals presented to him in the doorway of the church.

A cat sits on its owner's shoulder after being blessed outside Madrid's San Anton Church.

A girl holds her turtle after getting it blessed outside San Anton Church.

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Pedro Armestre / AFP - Getty Images

A horseman jumps over a bonfire in the central Spanish village of San Bartolome de Pinares to open the celebrations for the feast of Saint Anthony, patron saint of animals, on Monday Jan. 16, 2012.

Daniel Ochoa De Olza / AP

A man rides a horse through a bonfire in San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012.

On the eve of Saint Anthony's Day, hundreds ride their horses trough the narrow cobblestone streets of the small village of San Bartolome during the "Luminarias," a tradition that dates back 500 years and is meant to purify the animals with the smoke of the bonfires and protect them for the year to come.

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Dan Martella / UGC

La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

Like other major Spanish cities, Barcelona has many charms -- some of them magical. Antoni Gaudí's surreal architecture would arguably be atop any list of these attractions.

Born in 1852 in a small town outside of Barcelona, Gaudí is chiefly known for the Sagrada Familia, a church (pictured above) that is structured in the shape of a Latin cross. Work began on the Gothic-revival building in 1882; Gaudí joined the project the following year and continued to work on it until his death in 1926.

The dramatic Nativity facade, dedicated to Jesus' birth, and crypt are among several of Gaudí's works on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Gaudí's style, which included undulating lines, pops of color and spatial creativity, "anticipated and influenced many of the forms and techniques that were relevant to the development of modern construction in the 20th century," according to UNESCO.

Cameron Hewitt

Antoni Gaudi's Parc Guell in Barcelona offers fanciful views at every turn.

Gaudí was also a visionary when it came to urban parks, turning acres of green space into fantastical landscapes. Parc Guëll (pictured above) is a popular Barcelona attraction, located in the city's suburbs.

For more information about these and other Gaudí structures in Barcelona, visit the city's tourism website. To see more photos of his work, check out this website.

Have you been to Gaudí's works? Share your experiences in the comments below.

More stories you might like:

• Discover culinary delights on your next getaway
• Explore ancient Mayan civilization in Tikal
• Get nostalgic with tunes dedicated to U.S. cities

Rebecca Ruiz is a senior editor at msnbc.com. Follow her on Twitter.

Arturo Rodriguez / AP

Azucena Paredes, an unemployed mother of three children, cries during her eviction in Madrid on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. As in many European countries, Spanish mortgages are not like US-style ones in which defaulters can return the keys to the bank and walk away from their debt, albeit with their credit rating in ruins. Here, mortgage holders not only have to give the house back, but also pay off bank debt. If they cannot, upon their death it is passed on to their relatives.

Arturo Rodriguez / AP

Police officers are seen through peephole of Azucena Paredes's home, an unemployed mother of three children, before her eviction in Madrid, Friday on Nov. 18, 2011.

According to polls, it is widely expected that Spain's elections on Sunday will welcome the center-right People's Party taking over the current seven-year-old Socialist government. Many challenges face the new government, which will be taking over a country in the throws of economic distress, with unemployment rates at 21.5%. But before the Spanish see improvements, they will likely see things worsen.

AP reports:

The task facing the PP will be to assure markets that Spain will continue to do everything to meet its pledges to shrink the deficit.

But a much deeper reform of the labor market, which the PP plans, and even tougher cuts needed to meet deficit targets in the year ahead, will help push the economy into recession, and send the 21.5 percent unemployment rate higher in the short-term.

"The first half of the year will be hard because they will have to cut brutally. It will be the hardest we've seen in the crisis," said Pablo Vazquez, director of economic think-tank FEDEA.

For the complete story: Spain recession more likely on new austerity.

Arturo Rodriguez / AP

Azucena Paredes' grandmother Tomasa Morcillo, 87, picks up her personal belongings as she and her family are evicted in Madrid, Friday on Nov. 18, 2011.

Arturo Rodriguez / AP

A protester is removed by police officers during a protest to stop the eviction of Azucena Paredes, an unemployed mother of three children, in Madrid on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011.

Alvaro Barrientos / AP

An executive sits with a coffee outside a restaurant in the old city of Pamplona, northern Spain, on Oct. 27. Amid the economic crisis, Spanish firms are considering scrapping something sacred: the two-hour lunch break.

Alvaro Barrientos / AP

Workers eat lunch washed down with red wine at a bar in the old city of Pamplona on Oct. 27.

Alvaro Barrientos / AP

Beatriz, an economist, eats lunch in her office in Pamplona on Oct. 27.

I know we all have to adjust to these austere times, but making Spaniards grab lunch at their desks is bordering on the barbaric. Is nothing sacred any more?

The AP reports from MADRID:

 Day after day, Spanish chef Jesus Lopez serves up treats like a steaming stew of red beans with spicy chorizo sausage and bacon chunks. And that's just the first course. Next comes hake au gratin on a bed of spinach, and cream-stuffed puff pastry for dessert.

Lopez owns a small, upscale place catering to business people who eat the old-fashioned Spanish way and often come to negotiate or celebrate deals. They punctuate work with a break of two hours or more for a hearty meal — the rest of the work day be damned. But many now wonder if struggling Spain can continue to afford a tradition that — for some — borders on sacred.

"It is quintessentially Spanish," said Lopez, a friendly, thoughtful man of 48. "The problem is that there are fewer things to celebrate these days." Continue reading.

Paul White / AP

Workers queue for lunch at the Iberdrola company headquarters in Madrid on Nov. 2.

Ships and aircraft have been ordered to stay away from the bubbling waters around La Restinga, and the Port's 600 residents have been evacuated.  Read more here...

Spanish government handout / AFP - Getty Images

This image released Nov. 3, shows green and brown stains at sea off the coast of the Spanish Canary Island of El Hierro. A series of quakes including one measuring 4.0 on the Richter scale shook Hierro island in Spain's Canaries, three weeks after a nearby undersea volcanic eruption. The 4.0-magnitude quake struck at 0755 GMT in the Atlantic about five kilometres (three miles) northwest of the town of Frontera, population 4,000, said a report by the National Geographical Institute.

Spanish Institute of Oceanograph / EPA

This computer-genereated image shows the underwater volcano in the southern area of El Hierro Island, in the Canary Islands, Spain, on Oct. 31.

Canary Regional Goverment handout / EPA

This image made available on Nov. 4 shows volcanic activity on Nov. 3 from underwater volcano at El Hierro island coast, Canary Islands, Spain. The volcano has being erupting and causing the ground to shake several times a day since July 2011.

 Follow the volcano's activity blow-by-blow on Earthquake Report

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