The Lagos City Council is investing 5 million euros in projects to better manage the water distributed in the domestic network, revealed Paulo Reis, vice president of the municipality, in statements to the Sul Informação.
These investments are paid for by funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).
«We applied for two projects. One of them has already been financed and we are now launching the project. It amounts to around 1 million euros and has to do with the first phase of creating six Monitoring and Control Zones (ZMC)». These are electronic equipment that allow you to see, «through the volumes of water consumed, whether there are breaks, whether consumers are spending more than they should», explained Paulo Reis.
In the second phase, which will represent “much more investment”, 4 million euros will be invested to implement 46 more ZMC.
«With these 52 ZNC, we will be able to monitor the entire municipality», guaranteed the vice president of the Chamber.
The mayor, who spoke to the Sul Informação on the margin of trip that the Minister of the Environment made to the Algarve on Tuesday, added that the Lagos Chamber’s investments in improving the management of its water resources did not start now, nor do they stop here.
“Additionally, we reformulated our entire remote management of the distribution of deposits to the domestic network,” he added.
Lagos is also making "a huge effort to reduce saline intrusion, which will allow a project, which will also cost around 4 million euros, to be implemented and which has to do with the reuse of water from the WWTP", he also said Paulo Reis. At this moment, «we already have very acceptable saline intrusion values».
The project involves reducing saline intrusion in the wastewater that is sent for treatment at the WWTP, allowing, after the Elevation and Water Supply for Reuse (ApR) works, to “supply both the Boavista golf course and the Palmares golf course, as well as some public green spaces».
This is yet another investment for the reuse of treated water in the WWTP, which will be the responsibility of the company Águas do Algarve, as part of the interventions that have been carried out in other Treatment Stations in the Algarve, of which the most recent cases are the Vilamoura and Quinta do Lago WWTPs.
Vice President Paulo Reis also said that the Municipality of Lagos has been working to reduce water losses in the network.
«We recorded losses of 26%, at the moment we are at around 21%. We have already managed to reduce a lot, but our objective is to reduce losses to 18% in 2026", he added, in his statements to Sul Informação.
«This involves a very large effort and investment. This is a problem that cuts across municipalities across the country, especially because, for many years, investment in infrastructure was not what should have been made», he admitted.
Thus, «every time we have an urban intervention or on a road network, we replace the pipes, which has also contributed to reducing water losses», he added.
In municipal public spaces, «we also have a remote management system, with an associated weather station». Thanks to this equipment, «the flows available for irrigation are monitored every day, with alarm systems, which allow for the timely repair of ruptures that may exist in green spaces», guaranteed the mayor.
«With this, we have contributed to reducing water losses in these green spaces and losses in general», he concluded.
Reducing water losses in the urban distribution network is one of the measures foreseen in the Algarve Regional Water Efficiency Plan, to which the PRR allocates a total budget of 200 million euros.
In addition to reducing water losses in the urban sector, PRR funds are intended to increase efficiency in the agricultural sector, increase the available capacity of reservoirs, promote the use of treated wastewater and the desalination of seawater.
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