Portugal and Spain commit to avoiding days without flow in the Tagus River

The governments of Portugal and Spain are committed to managing the Tagus reservoirs to avoid days without flow, and Spain ensures that it releases at least one cubic hectometer of water daily from the Cedilho Dam.

Portugal will guarantee that the flows released by the Portuguese concessionaire of the Belver dam are equal to or greater than 1.05 hectometer cubic daily (1.05 hm3/day) in the period from May to November and 1.30 hm3/day in the period from December to April.

The data is part of a document signed this Wednesday by the two countries (in the framework of the 35th Portuguese-Spanish summit that took place in Faro), called “4th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Cooperation for the Protection and Sustainable Use of Waters in the Luso-Spanish Hydrographic Basins”, on the flow regime of the Tagus and Guadiana.

In the document, to which Lusa had access, there is a commitment from both countries in the management of the Cedilho (Spain) and Fratel and Belver (Portugal) reservoirs to avoid days without flowand promote the exchange of information to accompany the agreement.

And also in “Continue holding monthly technical meetings as well as regular high-level meetings.“, to jointly analyze “the different situations that arise” to determine management measures, either with respect to the Cedilho discharges or management in Portugal.

Organizations Environmentalists have criticized this decision.which the Ministers of the Environment of both countries had already announced in a meeting held in Aranjuez, Spain, on September 27, and consider that a minimum flow may not guarantee the health of the ecosystems.

The document on water management of the two rivers signed this Wednesday also includes a minimum monthly flow for the Guadiana River. In the document, both parties define the operating rules, establishing, for example, that in non-dry months, in February, 45 hm3 of water are poured in two days.

This allows, for example, to ensure flows of migratory species that come from the sea to reproduce in the river, such as lampreys or shad, or those, such as barbel, that travel up the river.

And they also allow nutrients to be carried along the river to the estuary, and reduction of sedimentation, the document states.

The two countries also establish that, to reinforce the water supply to the Algarve, the water collection in Pomarão (Portuguese stretch of the Guadiana) corresponds to the capture of a maximum annual volume of 30 hm3, “nothing prevents the volume to be captured from subsequently increasing to 60 hm3″, as is the case of the capture of Bocachança (Spain), ” without compromising, however, the flow regime defined for the Pomarão section, nor the uses planned in Bocachança.”

The collection to reinforce the water supply to Huelva, pumping from Bocachança, in the international section of the Guadiana, “corresponds to the collection of a maximum annual volume of 60 hm3, and in situations of very high flows more than that volume can be captured. , and cannot, however, harm the completion of the flood flow release operation.”