Western Algarve dams to ensure two years’ water for consumption

  • Lusa
  • 24 February 2022

The president of the Algarve Intermunicipal Community (AMAL) said the dams and reservoirs in the western Algarve will preserve water reserves to ensure human consumption for two years.

Dams and reservoirs in the western Algarve will preserve water reserves to ensure human consumption for two years and limit use for irrigation of green spaces, golf and agriculture, said the president of the Intermunicipal Community.

The president of the Algarve Intermunicipal Community (AMAL), António Pina, told Lusa that this was one of the measures that were adopted on Wednesday at the first of five meetings, led by the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), which will be held in all regions of the country to assess measures to be taken against drought.

“We have a serious problem [with drought]. According to IPMA [Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere] forecasts, it may be even more serious, but we have a different problem from two years ago, because the situation this time is more serious in the west than in the east,” said António Pina.

The president of AMAL explained that, given this situation, “measures will be taken” to, “immediately, guarantee that, in the western region, there is the necessary amount of water, in case it doesn’t rain for two years, to ensure human supply”.

The Mayor of Olhão also said that the three “western reservoirs have a total of 92.5 hectares” of water and, from now on, “80 will be reserved for human consumption for two years” and “only around 12.5 hectares will be available for agricultural consumption, golf and other purposes.

This figure, he noted, “corresponds to the irrigation needs of the perimeter of this area for one season.”

António Pina also said that, in the short term, there will be “a set of other actions that the municipalities also propose, such as reducing irrigation in many of the green spaces” and “to replace consuming species with others of very low consumption”.

This reconversion may be made, according to the mayor, for “€5 million for the whole country” which will be destined “to awareness-raising campaigns” and water saving.

There are also plans for “water reuse projects for some golf courses,” which will allow “eight hectometres” of treated water to be used for irrigation, said António Pina, stressing that studies for the “desalination plant” provided for in the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), as well as projects” to collect water from Pomarão, had already been awarded.

He said that the municipalities had also submitted applications to the PRR in the “amount of €14 million to combat water losses”.

“This situation forces us, once and for all, to look at the issue of water in a different way, and the way we consume this water, whether in the Algarve, or throughout the country. It is obvious that climate change influences this resource, and despite the investments we are making in the Algarve, don’t think that we will have more water in the next 20 years, because these investments will guarantee that we have the same water”, he warned.

António Pina considered that it is necessary to “think about how it is going to be spent” and called on the Portuguese state to “do the same as in Spain and make water a public resource”, allowing the management of underground water to cease being “private”.