The president of the company managing the Alqueva reservoir, José Pedro Salema, today expressed “reservations” about capturing water from the Guadiana river to reinforce the Odeleite reserves, in the Algarve, and recalled that “the blanket is short”.
“We have some reservations about this capture if it requires the release of additional flows”, the president of the Alqueva Development and Infrastructure Company (EDIA), in Ferreira do Alentejo, told the Lusa agency, on the sidelines of a colloquium on “Climate Change, Drought and Water Resources”.
The Algarve Water Efficiency Plan foresees the capture of water in the Guadiana river, from Pomarão to the Odeleite dam reservoir.
The project “is in the pipeline”, but José Pedro Salema recalled that Alqueva already releases “important flows to meet the ecological flow downstream” and, in this sense, is “very close to the maximum discharge capacity”.
“If this abstraction forces us to discharge more water, that is a concern for us. The blanket is short. Either cover your feet or cover your head. If we are all stretched out and want a little more, someone will be missing”, she concluded.
The Algarve Water Efficiency Plan foresees collecting water from the Guadiana river, from Pomarão to the Odeleite dam reservoir, and the construction of a third dam in the Eastern Algarve, on the Foupana river.
Investments are also ongoing, within the scope of the Algarve Water Efficiency Plan, to increase reserves in the region, such as the construction of a desalination plant in Albufeira, budgeted at 90 million euros, with financing from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) and whose competition was launched last week.
The Alqueva Multi-Purpose Enterprise guarantees water for agriculture, with an irrigated area of 130 thousand hectares, for public and industrial supply and for the production of hydroelectric energy, in addition to boosting tourism in the Alentejo region.
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