The water - or lack of it

If it doesn't rain heavily in mid-September and October, we'll reach the end of the year in a distressing situation.

Bravura Dam almost dry last weekend – photo: © João Mariano | The Understands – Aljezur BTT Team

I see few people concerned about the water problem in the south of the country, particularly in the Algarve.

The reservoirs of the dams are reaching their minimum limits and, without even becoming dry, the last water below 20% is starting to be considered, in addition to being scarce, unfit for consumption.

And, unless one is waiting to resort to the measure recommended by a previous Minister of Environment, Agriculture, etc., anyway, which is to pray to Our Lady for rain, no Authority has yet come to deal with the matter with the authority required in the circumstances.

If it doesn't rain profusely in mid-September and in October, we will reach the end of the year in a precarious situation, although the current and efficient Minister of the Environment usually says that everything is under control. Will it be? So what about the poor citizen cannot know anything about this control?

We don't see any public campaign to motivate people to save water, we don't see any environmental education campaign (I was told one day that it looked bad for a country in the European Union to be promoting education campaigns), we can really be in that EU, but the behavior of a good part of the population is Third World, because the Public Authorities have never done or do anything to inform and train people, nothing!

I don't know, but I would like to know, how many golf courses recycle irrigation water to maintain Scottish-style lawns in a region with a Mediterranean climate.

We do not replant the mountain ranges with the conservation forest that any EU country knows it should do, as this is where the waters that flow in the drainage lines downstream are formed; on the contrary, professor Nuno Loureiro published excellent photographs of the continued expansion of eucalyptus trees on the slopes of Monchique.

We have traditional cultures demanding water, which made the Algarve famous, such as citrus fruit; as if that were not enough, the Regional Directorate of Agriculture itself, of old and honorable memory, which should have maintained its reputable agricultural experimentation for crops adapted to conditions of progressive aridity, is promoting the avocado orchards... which were sorely missed here .

Landscape architect Gonçalo Gomes did some math and came to the conclusion that the consumption of water to keep the avocado trees is exorbitant – it's just what the Algarve needs!

Nobody wants to believe in climate change, that's the truth – when the Mediterranean latitudes will be one of the most afflicted by the increase of extreme phenomena, with prolonged droughts and occasional and torrential precipitation.

That's why there are those who demand another dam – hoping that the rain that doesn't fill the existing reservoirs will fall especially on a newly built reservoir. Maybe rehearsing a rain dance called for the effect…

The Mediterranean countries I know all have several seawater desalination plants, which, with the new materials and being self-sufficient in energy (wind and solar), provide drinking water at a price compatible with urban use - around here nothing.

We do not need.

It is this lack of planning and foresight that should afflict the Portuguese and lead to the elections.

 

Note: Fernando Santos Pessoa is a landscape architect

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