The Government approves the Alentejo Water Efficiency Plan, which is being submitted for public comment.

This Thursday, the government approved the Alentejo Regional Water Efficiency Plan, a document that will be publicly discussed, with “about 70 measures” to improve the resilience of the area, with a total investment of “nearly 1,000 million euros”.

“The Alentejo Water Efficiency Plan concerns the hydrographic regions of Sado and Mir and Guadiana,” said the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Duarte Cordeiro spoke at a press conference following the Council of Ministers meeting held in Évora as part of the Near Government initiative.

The document, which was already submitted by the government on Wednesday, was generally made available this Thursday for public comment.

Duarte Cordeiro said that the Alentejo Regional Water Efficiency Plan is the result of a joint effort between the Ministries of Environment and Agriculture, which provides “about 70 measures” to be implemented in the short and medium term to “strengthen the resilience of the territory, but also to identify ways to respond on the issue of climate change.

“We are talking about a global investment in all respects of almost 1,000 million euros,” the official said, specifying that the cost is 993 million euros, of which 79% are for the agricultural sector, 18% for the urban sector. and 3% to the rest.

With this plan, the government expects to “reduce water consumption in the urban and tourism sector by about 10%, corresponding to about 17 cubic hectometers, and for collective hydro-agricultural purposes by about 12%, to about 29 cubic hectometers.”

“Thus, the total savings is about 46 cubic hectometers,” he added.

Among the measures envisaged by the plan, the minister singled out the connection of Alqueva with Monte da Rocha, a project that is in the process of selecting a winner for the award of work, has identified the owner of the environmental portfolio.

The Minister recalled that “Monte da Rocha is one of the dams on the Alentejo coast that currently has consumption restrictions for agriculture, it is exclusively for human consumption.”

With regard to the Santa Clara Dam in the Mira region, which was allowed to collect water at lower than normal rates this year as an exception, the Alentejo Water Efficiency Improvement Plan provides for measures to “restore water withdrawals to 116% in a timely manner.” what is considered normal”, through two large-scale projects, one for reducing losses in agriculture with an investment of 30 million euros, and the other for public supply worth 36 million euros.

“In this plan, the possibility of building two desalination plants was also considered,” said Duarte Cordeiro, pointing out that one of them is located in the Mira area, “for the irrigators of the World, which, through private investment, do not affect the consumption of water from the Santa Clara dam, thus freeing up a significant amount of consumption, which strengthens the sustainability of the territory.

The other, in the Sines region, to be implemented by Águas de Portugal, aims to meet future needs, namely the industrial needs for hydrogen production in the area.

Anticipating less rainfall in the future, the minister said the estimate for the Alentejo area, with the hydrographic regions of Sado, Mira and Guadiana, suggests a reduction in rainfall of “about 25%”.

The Alentejo Regional Water Conservation Plan, which sets the implementation horizon of measures up to 2030, most of which can be achieved by 2027, provides for 41 measures for the agricultural sector, corresponding to 56% of a total of about 70, he said. minister.

The document also includes 12 water management measures, 12 for the urban sector, six for tourism and two for industry.

“About 30% of these measures are related to the topic of energy efficiency, 45% to adaptation and 17% to environmental measures,” said Duarte Cordeiro.