The Alqueva reservoir in Alentejo will supply another 30 million cubic meters of water to farmers in the plant’s irrigation perimeters due to drought, the president of the management company said on Tuesday.
This increase in water allocation for irrigation, which was originally planned, was explained to Lusa by Alqueva Development and Infrastructure Company (EDIA) President José Pedro Salema, due to the drought the region is experiencing.
“Now it is almost the end of May, and there has been practically no rain since January. It is only natural that farmers need to water their crops more,” the official justified.
Indicating that EDIA will now increase the maximum permitted water volumes for each of the approximately 2,000 registered in the current campaign, José Pedro Salema indicated that this measure is already included in the Annual Water Use Plan.
“We have already provided for this mechanism. The only difference is that we do it in advance,” since in the rules for the annual plan set for this campaign, “we predicted that we would do it at the end of June,” the official said.
The President of EDIA said that this increase in the amount of water allocated for irrigation will be done through the existing availability in the dam and in the distribution network of the Alqueva development, which “comprises about 30 million cubic meters” of water.
“In some cases it may be 10% more, in others a little less, but this is a help and what we can do not to exceed our concession, and this is a sign that we are attentive to the weather,” he said. He. .
According to the person in charge, EDIA will now notify each of Alqueva’s beneficiaries by letter and email of the new volume values that will be provided upon registration.
In statements to Luce, José Pedro Salema emphasized that “there will be no shortage of water in the areas served by Alqueva”, noting that the amount stored in the dam is “quite sufficient for this campaign and the next one without any restrictions.” .
“The problem is that the areas served by Alqueva are not the entire Alentejo, and the big drama of the drought is isolated areas that do not have public or private irrigation and depend only on water that falls from the river. sky,” he said.
For the president of EDIA, the rainfed areas in the Alentejo region are those that are “of concern” and where “there is already a dramatic situation”.
“I believe that these rains [dos últimos dias] will not bring significant inflows, since the soils are quite dry and these precipitations are mainly retained in the soils, contributing to pastures and some savings [de água] on irrigated lands,” he added.
Alqueva is already irrigating 130,000 hectares and is expanding to benefit 20,000 more.