Pró-Rios was presented today in Lisbon at a session chaired by the Minister of the Environment, Maria da Graça Carvalho, who stated that a total of €187 million will be allocated to waterway works, with an average of € 46 million per year from 2020 to 2029.
€52.5 million has been earmarked for the rivers and streams of the Algarve and Alentejo alone, said Maria da Graça Carvalho, who called for ambition and speed in the presentation and implementation of the projects.
According to today’s estimates, more than 1,000 kilometres of rivers and streams will be affected by more than 80 interventions.
Pró-Rios aims to manage and reduce flood risk, strengthen adaptation to climate change, improve ecological status, restore biodiversity and degraded habitats, and enhance the land’s value for population use.
The Minister recalled that, for many years, in Portugal and in other countries, rivers were on the verge of ‘ecological collapse’ due to being walled up, covered, and used for waste disposal.
In the 2024 floods in Valencia, which claimed more than 200 lives, the rivers’ confinement did not help, she noted. That is why one of the programme’s tasks is to intervene in areas at high risk of flooding, such as Lisbon and Algés, and interventions will also be carried out in Faro, Albufeira, and Tavira, as well as in other smaller areas.
With the flood risk map completed and published, the task of identifying the most urgent cases of obsolete barriers and river renaturalisation will be carried out on a region-by-region basis, she explained.
Maria da Graça Carvalho said that, of the total 180 ME, around 60 ME will be for the larger works and the rest for the renaturalisation of rivers, and all should be ready by 2029, with the most complex ones, in Lisbon and Algés (Oeiras), being further advanced, and the renaturalisation works can be done in about a year.
At this stage, the Minister seeks collaboration with entities such as universities and environmental protection associations, as the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) cannot do everything on its own, she said.
Last year alone, 14 ME was invested in 68 river interventions, according to the Minister, who said that Pró-Rios is aligned with the Água que Une (Water that Unites) strategy, the National Restoration Plan (to be implemented) and the National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change.
Maria da Graça Carvalho said that at the next Iberian summit, at the end of the month in the Huelva region, an agreement will be signed to desilt the Minho River and restore its banks. Currently, due to the large amount of sand, it is not easy to cross.
The Minister added that other topics at the summit will be biodiversity, mainly data collection and marine protected areas, as well as climate security, related to adaptation to climate change.
The Minister said that recovering lost time in relation to rivers, restoring nature, water resilience, coastal protection, and the ‘extremely serious situation’ of waste will constitute this year’s environmental agenda.
Pimenta Machado, the president of APA, who presented Pró-Rios, said that of the 1,834 surface water bodies on the continent, more than half did not achieve good ecological status. He noted that more than 100,000 people live in flood-risk areas across more than 100 municipalities.
River rehabilitation not only helps to reduce the risk of flooding but also conserves ecosystems, improves water quality and aids sediment transport, he said.