The Algarve still has a “very serious” situation … “the summer will not be easy” – Nuno Bravo, Central Hydrographic Region Administration
The volume of water stored in dams across Portugal currently stands at 81%, an increase of 24% since October 2022, Nuno Bravo, from the Central Hydrographic Region Administration (ARH), revealed.
“In October [2022], we had a difficult situation, with the volume of water stored in our reservoirs at 57%, on average, across Portuguese territory. Now, in March, the situation has clearly changed and we are at 81% of total volume stored,” he said.
The manager of ARH Centro was participating last week in a conference promoted by Águas de Coimbra, with the theme “Droughts and Floods: An inevitability in the context of climate change? – Structural and non-structural solutions”.
During his speech, focused on the new challenges of water management, Nuno Bravo recalled that the last hydrological year was “extremely dry”, being “the third driest year ever”.
As of February 2022, contingency measures were outlined, focused especially on the containment of uses in reservoirs, in order to safeguard public supply.
In this hydrological year, which began in October 2022, water storage in the reservoirs is “more comfortable”, due to the heavy rainfall that occurred in December 2022 and January 2023.
The rain that fell and even caused floods in Porto and the Algarve allowed the reservoirs to “restore their levels” in most national reservoirs, except the Algarve, which still has a “very serious” situation, Bravo said, anticipating that “the summer will not be easy”.
The conference, which took place in Coimbra, brought together experts and policymakers to discuss the threat of water scarcity and the occurrence of floods.
Source: Lusa
