The water crisis in southern Portugal: how did we get there and how should we solve it

Nunes, Luís; Monteiro, José Paulo; Cunha, Maria da Conceição; Vieira, João; Lucas, Helena; Ribeiro, Luís

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/1147

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Authors

Nunes, Luís

Monteiro, José Paulo

Cunha, Maria da Conceição

Vieira, João

Lucas, Helena

Ribeiro, Luís

Abstract(s)

Until very recently, public water supply in the Algarve region was almost entirely supported by groundwater wells. However, in the last years of the XX Century, the Portuguese central administration defined a scheme for the public water supply sector entirely based in surface water from large dams, in order to guarantee the public water supply. The efforts to abandon groundwater as a source for public supply started in 1998, after a large investment in new infrastructures and rehabilitation of other ones. However, the practical implementation of this water supply scheme showed that an integrated resource management is needed in order to implement a more economical and reliable solution. The present paper describes the historical background and the evolution of water use in the last decades until the present time in the Algarve, and a proposal for restructuring the management of the water supplies based in the development of a decision support system in the scope of an integrated water resources management.