Maria da Graça Carvalho said that the interconnection between the dams and the Bravura dam, in Lagos, in the Barlavento (western) Algarve, will be possible following Spain's authorisation for the use of 60 cubic hectometres of the River Guadiana.

“As long as the ecological flows of the Guadiana River are guaranteed, it allows the use of 30 cubic hectometres to take water from Pomarão and 30 cubic hectometres to reinforce Alqueva. Thus, through this reinforcement of Alqueva, it will be possible, and this is what we are studying at the moment, to connect Alqueva to the Mira Basin, therefore to Santa Clara, and from Santa Clara to the Bravura Dam”, said the government official.

The Minister of Environment and Energy was speaking in Faro, at the ceremony announcing the launch of the tender for the construction of the work for water intake from Pomarão, in the Sotavento (east) of the Algarve, at which protocols were also signed that will allow the implementation of solutions for access to water for the populations of Mesquita and Espírito Santo, in Mértola (Beja).

“We will therefore be supplying water to Barlavento and Sotavento. The reinforcement of the Barlavento - Sotavento connection, horizontally, which already exists, but is being reinforced, will give greater water resilience to the Algarve”, she highlighted.

According to Maria da Graça Carvalho, an integrated intervention is also planned in the rias and streams of Baixo Alentejo and Algarve - with funding from the Regional Operational Program, worth 40 million euros -, through the creation of two river reserves, one in Rio Vascão, in the eastern Algarve, one of the tributaries of the Guadiana, and another in Ribeira de Odeceixe, in the western Algarve.

“These will be two very important river reserves for our country”, she highlighted, adding that, in addition, the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), in conjunction with the Municipal Council of Mértola, in the district of Beja, is preparing studies for the renaturalisation of the banks of the Guadiana.

According to the government official, this project is included in the reprogramming of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), with a budget of 10 million euros being proposed to the European Commission to make the Guadiana “beautiful and renaturalised”, not using the water only “for socioeconomic purposes”.