António Miguel Pina warned that these solutions are the only ones that can help preserve existing reserves in the region until planned investments are completed to combat drought.

“I want to leave some ideas and concerns for the future because the present is really difficult and there are only two things to do: wait for it to rain and save. In the short term, that’s all there is to do”.

António Miguel Pina recalled that the region's existing public supply system “was sufficient” in the last 20 years to guarantee the needs of the urban circuit and irrigation perimeters, but stressed that the dry periods were four to five years old and the current one has already It's been going on for eight years.

Faced with this scenario, the president of AMAL asked the region for unity to move forward with necessary investments, which should include, he argued, a connection from the Alqueva dam system to the Beliche-Odeleite dam and another to the Santa Clara dam.

This solution is not, however, the most suitable for the president of the board of directors of the Alqueva Development and Infrastructure Company (EDIA), José Pedro Salema.

According to the person responsible, who spoke during an intervention during the conferences, this system is designed for a certain reality, and, “if you start to stretch the network further, you will take away investment guarantees” from the current one.

“This is not EDIA's vision, EDIA's vision is to guarantee the area that is infrastructure and contribute with knowledge and solutions to other geographies that are nearby, essentially damming national water lines, therefore water resources that are already owned by Portugal and they are not on an international river, which raises diplomatic questions. And then, there is a lot to do”, he considered.

Among the watercourses identified are, he noted, the Monchique stream, in the western (western) Algarve, the Oeiras and Peres-Cobres streams, tributaries of the Guadiana, in the Alentejo, or the Vascão and Foupana streams, in the Algarve, which can provide “one hundred or several tens of cubic hectometers”.

Related articles: