The Spanish government has begun meeting opposition parties in an effort to reach a compromise over its plan to divert water from northern Spain to the south-east.

On Sunday an estimated three-hundred-thousand people in Madrid and Zaragoza took part in demonstrations against the plan.

It involves building one-hundred-and-twenty dams to transfer one billion litres of water each year from the northern River Ebro to irrigate Mediterranean coastal areas.

The government has said the opposition parties must come up with alternative sources for the amount of water it says is needed. The opposition Socialists have proposed using desalination plants.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service