LAST YEAR’S drought did not have a negative effect on water quality, according to data released this week by the Instituto Regulador de Águas e Resíduos (IRAR), the regulatory institute for water and waste.
“Despite the drought affecting the majority of mainland Portugal in 2005, the data analysed in 31 boroughs, where more than 10 per cent of the total population was affected, the IRAR report revealed that the quality of the water used had not decreased. In fact, the data showed that in some of the boroughs affected by the drought, the quality of the water had actually shown an improvement.
For IRAR, this demonstrated that the exceptional measures taken (during the drought) were effective.
The data from 2005 also indicates that 85 per cent of the water analyses, with values outside those established by law, belonged to water management entities located in the interior in areas with less than 5,000 inhabitants.
Overall, the IRAR report found that the quality of water for human consumption has seen an improvement and that the “great majority of the population has access to a good quality public water supply”.
