The Albufeira Convention, the agreement which establishes the basis for joint cooperation and shared management of the rivers that flow from Spain to Portugal, has just celebrated a quarter of a century.
But as droughts become more intense and frequent in the Iberian Peninsula and water due for consumption becomes more scarce due to climate change, will the rules defined by the convention be fit to face iberian’s current reality?
With the support of Journalism Fund Europe’s Earth Investigations Program, we have uncovered a culture that prioritizes economic gain and the exploitation of resources over the conservation of rivers and water reserves. In times of drought, we are accelerating consumption instead of curbing use. But there are those who fight against this.
In this first article in a series of three, we explore the state of cooperation for the joint management of Iberian water resources, the relevance of the Albufeira Convention today — the desire, especially from the Portuguese side, not to change it — and the story of how we got to where we are.
Management: a change in sight in Iberian cooperation?
The summer this year has been punishing. According to data from the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA), in the period pertaining to July 2024, 9.2 per cent of the Portuguese territory was in a situation of severe drought, with a special incidence in Alentejo and Algarve.
In the neighboring Spanish regions of Extremadura and Andalusia, the situation is consistent: in Tentudia, south of Badajoz, a new water emergency has already been declared and water supply limits imposed, while in Málaga the drought is already affecting agriculture and tourism.
The tone is alarming, but the situation could be worse — at least, compared to recent hydrological years.
For the same period in 2023, meteorological stations recorded 48 per cent of the Portuguese territory (and not just the South) in a situation of severe to extreme drought.
This time, the rains from April to June brought more dramatic scenarios down. But the charm of 2024 was the exception to the new norm: the last 20 to 30 years have been particularly dry in Portugal, with six of the 10 harshest drought years of all time occurring after the year 2000.
The trend that has been forming, according to IPMA, is a reduction in precipitation values in all seasons of the year, with the exception of autumn (where, on the contrary, episodes of above-normal precipitation can be noted).
The prediction for the upcoming future is that the trend will subside, with more intense, longer and more frequent droughts becoming synonymous with normalcy.
The Albufeira Convention is the bilateral agreement that establishes the basis for Portuguese-Spanish cooperation in the management and protection of water resources shared between the two countries.
Last year, it celebrated a quarter of a century since its signing, on November 30, 1998, in the city of Albufeira.
Famously, the convention defines the river discharge regime to be maintained in the rivers that flow from Spain to Portugal: at the moment, and since the Additional Protocol was introduced in 2008, a regime of minimum flows, measured weekly and quarterly, that Spain has to send to Portugal so as not to violate the law.
But with drought causing river flows and water reserves in dams to decline more frequently and severely, tension between the two countries over the right to water usage is on the rise.
In 2022, Spain announced that it was unable to fully honor the quotas agreed for the Douro and Tagus rivers, when Spanish reservoirs reached a new minimum that year.
The question that was already being posed comes today with greater force: is the Albufeira Convention, at 25 years old, still an appropriate legal instrument to be employed in conditions of water scarcity?
The drought in the South of the Iberian Peninsula is “structural” rather than “cyclical”
Despite the increase in extreme drought and water scarcity events in the Iberian Peninsula, motivated by climate change, it is necessary to be cautious with the classification ‘historical drought’ when attributed freely without meeting scientific criteria.
“When we say ‘average precipitation,’ we are talking about 30-year averages. Meteorologically, there is no 5-year average, that is, this may just be a small variation”, explains Afonso do Ó, climatologist, specialist in Drought Risk Management and Transboundary Water Management and consultant for intervention in fresh waters for WWF Portugal.
“Between 1991 and 95, we had some years there that were terrible, with a lack of water supply reaching critical levels. Which practically didn’t happen again, on the [Portuguese] side, for a few more years. We have to remember this, that is, put things into perspective.”
This drought, the academic points out, was one of the driving factors for the conversations that led to the Albufeira Convention in 1998 — although, as we will see later, there were other conditions at play that motivated the talks for the agreement.
The following water crisis, generated by the 2004-2006 drought that profoundly affected Spain and Portugal from North to South, also led to a strong reaction from the media and populations with legal repercussions: governments sat down at the table again and created the Additional Protocol to the convention, signed in 2008. Ten years later, new event, new reaction.
The Additional Protocol served, above all, to update the river flow discharge regime, which went from an annual regime — in which the flow that was being sent was measured per year, so that Spain was only obliged to release to Portugal the volume of water discharge set out in the law, hypothetically, once a year, to comply with the minimum requirements — to a regime of weekly and quarterly flows.
A relevant update, but insufficient, given what should be the minimum conditions to provide for balanced riverside ecosystems, considers Do Ó.
“There is this quarterly flow, then there is a weekly flow that is set onto the law only in some sections of the river, but this is much smaller.”
This regime allows “Spain to do things that have already led to small environmental catastrophes”, such as “withholding water until the limit [of the deadline], waiting for it to eventually rain a little more and, in the end, to comply with the convention, release all the water at once”.
It also allows for the moments and volumes of discharge, within the limits of the law, to be decided according to the interests of the hydroelectric plants with dam concession contracts, depending on the spike or decrease in energy prices.
The solution, points out Do Ó — and many Spanish and Portuguese environmental activists do so as well — would be the implementation of an ecological river flow regime in shared Iberian rivers: a flow regime that simulates the natural behavior of the river, according to the season of the year and precipitation levels, as it used to happen when the infrastructures to control the river flow simply did not exist, and the river system regulated itself.
“When it rained more, [the river] had more water in it flowing, then the volume of the flow slowly decreased, then it increased again… This allows animals and plants, and therefore all ecosystem services, to adapt to this variation, which is natural.”
In the summer, it is “normal”, according to Do Ó, that we have practically no flow, especially in the south of the Peninsula: “In the Guadiana river, its tributaries, in Guadalquivir, flows go almost to zero because we have a very long dry season and a very intense one too, which is part of the climate. This in itself is not a drought [like those listed above]: it is just the dry season, summer.”
Maintaining ecological flows would mean respecting this structure. Because more than the lack of rain, for the climatologist, the biggest problem that the Iberians have on their hands lies, very clearly, in the excess water consumption, recorded mainly in agriculture and irrigated crops. As water resources become more scarce, consumption continues to increase.
But there are those who fight against this reality and for water resources’ management compatible with ecological needs. For Alice Pisco, who lives in Faro in the Algarve and is a member of PAS – Plataforma Água Sustentável (Sustainable Water Platform), drought and water scarcity are old acquaintances.
“The problem [of the lack of water in the Algarve] is structural and not cyclical”, although the solutions presented to the problem have not been so, highlights Pisco.
Turmoil under the waters and a complaint to the European Commission
PAS is an activist network platform that connects several national, regional and local environmental groups across Portugal, with the mission of presenting sustainable solutions to water scarcity in the south of the country.
Created in 2020, at a time when the drought was worsening again in Portugal and the pandemic was delaying new agricultural exploration and water capture projects, the network has since participated in different public consultations for proposals of this type.
And they are not alone in this fight: the movement to defend water and rivers has grown, slowly but surely, in Portugal as in Spain — and created networks of solidarity between countries along the way. An example of this is Red del Tajo/Rede do Tejo, which brings together collectives in defense of the Tagus on both sides of the border.
A defining moment in this growth took place on May 18th, with the first National Citizenship Meeting for the Defense of Rivers and Water (ENCDRA) taking place at Casa da Cultura in Coimbra, Portugal, and bringing together activists from North to South of Portugal, from Minho to Guadiana , to discuss problems and share struggles.
The topics that mark the Iberian debate on water made themselves known that day: transfers, flows, dams, desalination plants, conservation and renaturalisation, local and community engagement efforts.
But the highlight of the day was the presentation of the joint complaint to the European Commission, submitted on March 14th to the EC by the ProTejo collective, and signed by over 27 organizations, both Portuguese and Spanish: a document of 43 pages, which denounces the non-compliance with the Water Framework Directive (WFD) by Portugal and Spain to the EC for the non-implementation of ecological flows in the Cedillo dam, in the border area of the Tagus River, by Portugal and Spain.
The argument is that, by putting into effect for 25 years a provisional regime of minimum flows “fixed in a political and administrative manner” in the Iberian Peninsula, when the WFD itself — the European legislation under which all joint management agreements for water resources fall under within the European Union — provides for the implementation of ecological flows, Portugal and Spain are in breach of EU community law.
And they must, therefore, the document states, abandon “the obsolete flow regime of the Albufeira Convention” included in the Additional Protocol and proceed with the “definition and rigorous implementation of ecological flow regimes”.
If the complaint is successful, and the EC indeed considers this to be a violation of community law, Portugal and Spain will have to comply and update the regime in accordance with the WFD, guarantee the subscribers to the complaint.
Iberians’ choice: minimum flows verses ecological flows
At the basis of the joint complaint lies Article 16 of the Albufeira Convention, which concerns ‘river flows’ and how they should be managed between the two countries.
The provisions of paragraph 1 read that “The Parties, within the Commission, define, for each river basin, according to methods appropriate to its specificity, the flow regime necessary to guarantee the good status of the waters, its current and foreseeable uses”.
Paragraph 5 also adds that, “until the flow regime referred to in paragraph 1 of this article is further defined, the provisions of the Additional Protocol to this Convention apply”. This lack of definition continues to this day, leaving the expression ‘necessary flows’ semi-open to interpretation and the regime still linked to the Additional Protocol in place, that of 2008.
According to Paulo Constantino, member of the ProTejo movement since its foundation in 2009, in Vila Nova da Barquinha, Santarém, Portugal, the ‘flows necessary to guarantee the good state of the waters’ are, necessarily, ecological flows, as described in the Water Framework Directive , in the form of guideline no. 31 of the European Commission.
In this way, the original text of the convention itself paves the way for changing the regime established by the additional protocol, and there is no need to renegotiate the convention directly, says Constantino.
But, after all, what are minimum and ecological flows exactly? And what is the difference between the two?
“The [ecological flow regime] is one that allows the conservation of river ecosystems and species” through the maintenance of a flow that “accurately represents the natural regime of the river” and that preserves “the good ecological status of the waters”, explains Paulo Constantino.
These flows must be continuous, measured in cubic meters per second, regular and constant, according to the season of the year and the respective rate of variation, adjusted to climate conditions.
By contrast, “what exists today are minimum flows, because: they are not instantaneous flows; they are not measured in cubic meters per second; nor continuous; nor regular”, but rather flows that meet the minimum criteria, defined administratively at a higher level for each shared river basin, and measured per week, month and quarter, to enforce the prescription of the Additional Protocol.
“It is this instability that the law allows”, adds Paulo Constantino, “which gives permission to hydroelectric plants to manage [river flows] as they please. And they manage them with great volatility.”
An example of this occurred in February this year, when EDIA (Alqueva Development and Infrastructure Company) simulated a flood in the Guadiana River and proceeded to discharge, in two days, 45 million cubic meters of water from the dam of Pedrógão, the same amount of water that over 150 thousand inhabitants of Huelva consume in a year.
The joint complaint also highlights that, in addition to the quantity factor, the Albufeira Convention also introduces the quality factor.
The hydromorphological indicator of the good ecological status of waters shown in guideline no. 31 of the European Commission is the flow regime; Also referred to in the National Water Plan, the Portuguese national strategy for water management, this indicator defines the environmental objectives to be maintained for water bodies in order to avoid eutrophication in still waters.
“Our complaint [argues] that the way flows have been managed, the fact that there are no ecological flows, has led to a further deterioration of the ecological status of water bodies”, disrespecting the runoff indicator, concludes Constantino, the ProTejo spokesperson.
In addition to scientific markers or economic interests, for advocates of legislative change, there are symbolic and political values at stake here.
“Behind [each flow regime], there is a very different principle of water use by the two countries: [in the ecological flow regime], we acknowledge that water and rivers are a kind of veins of the planet and, therefore, are fundamental for everything.”
In the other regime, “an extractivist perspective prevails: let’s each get as much as we can, we divide the thing between the two of us and then, if there’s nothing left, we just move on”, says do Ó.
Insufficiency in joint drought mitigation mechanisms puts pressure on the Albufeira Convention
Recent years have been marked by severe droughts in the Iberian Peninsula, as well as by disputes and protests taking place on both sides of the border.
In February this year, thousands of Spanish farmers marched in Seville, Andalusia (the “greatest agricultural power” in Spain, according to the president of the regional government) demanding more water retention infrastructure to be put in place to face off the extreme drought, going as far as to propose the Albufeira Convention itself to be changed and an emergency transfer of water to be sent from Portugal to Spain.
Huelva’s farmers are not the only group calling for a change of this legal basis, but the issue is complex. Murmurs of contenders asking for the convention to change have been met with great political resistance, especially on the Portuguese side.
And the contentions are not limited to the issue of flows (although this is central to everything else): the ineffectiveness, until now, of joint drought mitigation mechanisms, is another weakness to be overcome.
In article 19 of the Albufeira Convention, which concerns ‘droughts and scarcity of resources’, it is established, in paragraph 1, that “The Parties coordinate their actions to prevent and control situations of drought and scarcity”, through “mechanisms of exceptions employed to mitigate its effects and define the very nature of the exceptions to the general regime” in accordance with applicable European law.
The following paragraphs list the conditions under which one of both countries is permitted to carry out exceptional measures. That is, applying water supply cuts or other containment measures in the event of water shortages (which should, in theory, always be communicated to the other Party) or, at the limit, failing to meet the convention’s quotas, as has already happened in Douro in 2022.
The problem is that “the Albufeira Convention defines the flows that must be released on the Spanish side, but only in a situation in which there is no drought”, warns Rui Cortes, professor and researcher at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro and specialist in the ecology of aquatic ecosystems and river basin planning.
In practice, “in a drought situation, the Spanish are not obliged to release any river flow. Therefore, the Convention is not actually applicable in drought situations, which is a concernable aspect that has not been properly monitored so far.”
Spanish people, especially in Extremadura and Andalusia, are also harmed by the absence of well-defined limits for the river flow in drought conditions as well as robust mitigation protocols. In addition to erratic discharges in border dams controlled by hydroelectric plants, they struggle with the obligation to meet a minimum flow above what would actually be ecologically necessary in times of extreme drought.
The mechanisms for co-management of drought situations are the responsibility of the Commission for the Application and Development of the Convention (CADC), the body responsible for monitoring, applying and developing the Albufeira Convention.
Its Technical Secretariat includes delegates from the General Directorate of Water and the Ministry for Ecological Transition (MITECO), from the Spanish side, and from the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), from the Portuguese side, among other members with relevant technical competence.
At the moment, the CADC’s ‘Working Group on Flow Regime, Droughts and Emergency Situations’ is no longer operational, with its functions having been scattered to other groups, according to the commission’s website.
Albufeira, 25 years later: from utilitarianism to sustainability
To understand the challenge that the worsening of droughts poses to the Albufeira Convention, it is necessary to go back to basics.
The Cooperation Convention for the Protection and Sustainable Use of Waters in the Luso-Spanish Hydrographic Basins, the full title of the agreement, came into force on January 17, 2000, after its official signature in November 1998.
Its text includes rules applicable to the Minho, Lima, Douro, Tagus and Guadiana river basins. Not by chance, it precedes by two years the creation of the Water Framework Directive, a European standard for the management of water resources in the EU that the Albufeira Convention falls under (which explains the interval between the moment of signature and implementation).
For Pedro Cunha Serra, the debate on the current nature of the Convention must be put in other terms, which go beyond a supposed ‘expiry date’: “The Convention continues to make perfect sense today”, especially because “these agreements are not exactly documents for a shelf life of 20 or 30 years.”
An engineering consultant and former president of the Water Institute (INAG) and the Águas de Portugal group, Cunha Serra followed, from the very beginning, the original negotiations for the Albufeira Convention and has participated in CADC’s work since its constitution, in the year 2000.
The voice of experience says that “these things are as they are: not exactly [short-term] documents. But they are not anything immutable either. They have to be created, validated, confronted with the problems that arise in the day-to-day management of water resources, etc.”
For the engineer and legislator, there were two main reasons that led to the conception and signing of the Albufeira Convention in 1998, as he writes in vol.44, n.2 of the magazine of the Portuguese Water Resources Association (APRH), in an article about the regime of flows proposed by the Portuguese Party for the Guadiana River at this foundational moment.
The first reason is that the draft of what would become the Water Framework Directive (WFD) was being discussed in Brussels, which provided for a framework for joint management of river basins shared across the EU, for which the Portuguese-Spanish negotiations would become a preamble.
Secondly, for financial reasons, since Portugal, as a beneficiary of the European Cohesion Fund at the time, intended to dedicate an important part of this financial envelope to the development of hydraulic projects, with emphasis on the Alqueva mega-dam project.
Despite the drought of 1991-1995 being seen as a driving factor for the Iberian negotiations, Cunha Serra has no doubts on this point, as he recalls the history of Portuguese-Spanish conventions for the management of shared waters (the 1964 convention is even cited in the text for Albufeira ): the most important aspect of the negotiations was, once again, the equitable division of resources for exploration.
In 1998, “the climate and environmental mission was on the back burner. I say this very sincerely.”
At the same time, it was with the Albufeira Convention, already fulfilling the premises of what would become the WFD, that for the first time in the history of Iberian negotiations over water resources, environmental concerns were put on paper.
Including, as we saw above, preventing situations of water scarcity with a general framework to encourage cooperation and non-competition for water — which then fails to specify and implement mitigation strategies. “The convention is a good instrument, but it needs to be fulfilled. In other words, what the convention itself says has to be done, was not done yet!”
Administrative dilemmas and obstacles to cooperation
An example of this incomplete implementation, in addition to the issue of ecological flows, is the situation of the Hydrographic Basin Plans (HBP).
The Water Framework Directive establishes that EU Member States must ensure the coordination of HBP among themselves, when in resource-sharing geographies. Therefore, Spain and Portugal are obliged to develop, in a coordinated or joint manner, joint plans for river basins management and protection.
These plans must be fulfilled, otherwise the States could be condemned and fined in the European Court — “without this pressure, they will eventually not take these concerns to heart”, concludes Cunha Serra.
But in practice, this doesn’t happen: hydraulic administrations meet regularly to discuss more technical issues, but the results are opaque. The most recent document available on the CADC website refers to planning for shared basins for 2016-21.
“Although the HBP have upheld measures that meet global compliance with legislation”, with the objective of “reducing the number of water bodies with a classification of ‘below good’, the Portuguese Agency for the Environment (APA) report at the end of the 2nd Cycle [2016-21] of HBPs signals an increase in this number”, warns a manifesto prepared by water defense associations in one of their points of demand.
“In addition to this, the new HBP for the 3rd Cycle (2022-2027)” are already 3 years late and “lack adequate financing for the re-qualification of watercourses”.
The CADC Technical Secretariat also presents the same problem, both in terms of transparency and of fulfilment of its functions. “In practice, [CADC] never intervenes in crisis management.
That is, when a dispute arises around Portuguese-Spanish cooperation, the CADC remains “mute”, while other actors speak for it: NGOs, scientists, APA, former members or current members of the Portuguese or Spanish delegation of the CADC” , summarises researcher Amparo Sereno, specialist in Environmental Law and member of the Portuguese Water Resources Association, in an opinion article alluding to the 25th anniversary of the Albufeira Convention.
“This makes the Commission a fragile institution, not very credible and even unknown to citizens, who have few opportunities to get closer to it.”
A solution proposed by Sereno would be to transform the CADC into an independent permanent technical commission, that is, led by scientists and other technicians, instead of State representatives, as is the case for rivers shared by more than two countries.
Pedro Cunha Serra agrees: “if you asked me this 20 years ago, I would have probably said: of course it’s not necessary! The Danube Commission has its Permanent Technical Secretariats, but there are 7 or 8 States in there.” We are only two. “Now, in light of what has been happening,” the idea of a Permanent Technical Secretariat, that is scientifically-led and independent, is “fully justifiable.”
Voices for change are multiplying, motivated by increased hydric stress, and they are coming from various sectors, from Spain and Portugal. Some of these critics fight for an explicit change to the Convention, others for the transformation of the Additional Protocol — others simply for the Albufeira Convention to be fully upheld and complied with.
But they have encountered resistance from political power, especially on the Portuguese side: last year, Duarte Cordeiro, then Minister of the Environment under António Costa, stated that Portugal “is not available” to review the Albufeira Convention, because “in a renegotiation, Portugal will always come out harmed.”
“There is a general fear, especially in Portugal”, points out Afonso do Ó, specialist in freshwater interventions at WWF, of playing at the Convention in any way.
“There were politicians who told us straight up: don’t even think we’re going to ask for a review. And why this attitude? Because when the minimum flows were established, precipitation averages from 1960 to 1990 were used, the most recent we had at the time. Obviously, if we now use the averages from 1990 to 2020, the values will be much lower and, therefore, Spain will be authorized to reduce these minimum flows. I think that is the fundamental reason for political rejection.”
He concludes: “What we say, and what most environmental movements say, is that there is no need to renegotiate the convention: we just need to finish complying with it; implement it fully, as it was approved in 98. In 1998 and 2008, the effects of the prolonged drought led to important legislative advances. In 2024, can strategic interest overcome the fear of ‘changing for the worse’?
A new bilateral agreement on the way?
Many didn’t believe it, but it turns out it is true: Portugal will give up its hold on the Alqueva mega-dam. On August 5, in Loulé, Algarve, Portuguese Environment Minister Maria da Graça Carvalho announced that Spain will start paying two million a year to Portugal for water catchments in the Alqueva.
The agreement, negotiated between the Portuguese minister and her Spanish counterpart, Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, should be officially signed on September 26, in Madrid. This will also include a set of measures relating to the Tagus and Guadiana, including ensuring compliance with ecological flows on the part of Spain, assures Carvalho.
Water storage in the Alqueva mega-dam, the largest in Europe, has long been coveted by Spanish farmers. But the issue is contentious, finding greatest opposition between Portuguese farmers, who fear that an expansion of irrigation water supplies to Spain will increase competition for access, and activists, who oppose yet another incentive for ad eternum water consumption, especially for irrigation, in times of drought and scarcity.
It has been known for more than twenty years that these water catchments take place illegally in the Alqueva and tributaries of the Guadiana, due to the passivity of successive Portuguese and Spanish executives, outside the stipulations of the Albufeira Convention, which in its Article 16, paragraph 4, establishes that “ any water catchment, regardless of the use and geographic destination of the waters, presupposes compliance with the flow regime in place and the other provisions of the Convention”.
Luís Montenegro’s (the Portuguese Prime Minister) new executive says he wants to change the situation, and APA and EDIA, guarantees Carvalho, have “done their work” to georeference illegal boreholes. This announced agreement could be a way of bilaterally regulating and making legal what already happens outside the law.
The value of two million per year corresponds to the announced ‘bill’ that Spain would have to pay to Portugal for the years of illegal use, but does not include the accumulated ‘debt’; in other words, the amount will be paid for present and future uses, which will now be permitted, and not for past irregular uses, normalising the existence of catchments close to dams on both sides of the border.
“In relation to Alqueva, it was just a matter of monitoring what was being spent on the Spanish side, doing the math, and Spain, naturally, is willing to pay what it owes us for the water”, said Maria da Graça Carvalho.
The value “is not exorbitant”, considering the Spanish dimension, but it is also “not a negotiating concession” that allows Spain regular access to Alqueva in exchange for the guarantee of ecological flows, assures the minister.
It is also worth noting that the Portuguese Environment Agency and its Spanish counterpart were tasked by their respective Environment Ministries to “prepare a proposal for an agreement on the various projects for the use of water from the Tagus and Guadiana”, reported Público in June.
The details of what the agreement will be, with the outcome announced for September, are not yet known, but the topics of energy use and new connection bridges over the river border were raised.
But not everyone agrees with the legitimisation of new catchments in Alqueva. In a manifesto prepared before the last legislative elections in Portugal by several water defense associations (which included ProTejo and PAS), the signatory organizations fought for 15 demands for rivers and water, stating their demand for “ avoiding resorting to new sources of water catchments”, as well as “supervising, effectively and efficiently, water catchments (both underground and on surface) for any type of use, providing the competent authorities with adequate human and material resources to comply with the obligation to report the used quantities of water”.
Portuguese farmers have also shown concern, but because they fear an increase in competition for the Alqueva water supply for irrigation, in a supply network that already has a vast number of so-called ‘precarious users’, those who use water coming from the Alqueva grid outside of regularity, whom have not stopped increasing in number and territorial distribution.
Diogo Vasconcelos, president of AJASUL, an association of farmers in the south of Portugal, based in Évora, Alentejo, has no doubts in his mind about Carvalho’s announcement.
“What I think has to happen is, before thinking of expanding [the number of users] in Alqueva, wherever they may be coming from, is to include all the precarious users in our corner. And then we can look around and see: well, do we have water for everyone here? We do, great, let’s add more people. If it’s not enough, we can’t continue expanding Alqueva towards infinity and we risk running out of water for ourselves. This doesn’t make any sense to me.”
The path for this new bilateral agreement, to be signed at the end of September, was already being laid out in the protocol for Pomarão’s water catchment, announced earlier on.
The goal of this protocol was to legislate a situation to which Portugal had been turning a blind eye to for two decades: the illegal water catchment of Bocachanza, located right after the Chanza dam, which serves the water supply of Huelva and Andalusian irrigated areas.
In this Spanish southern region, consecutive droughts compete with the needs of the famous ‘sea of plastic’, the kilometric extension of greenhouses lining the territory in white.
The reinforcement of water extraction in Bocachanza had previously been announced by the Spanish authorities without notifying Portugal, directly violating the Albufeira Convention.
Now, there will be greater control of boreholes, according to both Portuguese and Spanish Environment Ministers, but there will also be some that will be legalised.
The priority, highlights Carvalho, is to have concrete data about what is happening in Pomarão and the surrounding area. But this action also paves the way for Portugal to carry out its own catchments, on the opposite side of the border, nearing the same dam of Chanza. And, therefore, paving the way for new catchments to take place in the future on both Spanish and Portuguese sides.
Pomarão catchment: example of Iberian cooperation or an extractivist paradigm?
Mornings at Pomarão always start calmly. The small Alentejo village in the municipality of Mértola opens its eyes to the view of a dry green field, silence prevailing over the summer heat, an old acquaintance of the people of the Baixo Alentejo area.
It is there, next to the old riverside community, that the Chanza river joins the Guadiana, running under the Baixo Guadiana International Bridge that connects the border between Portugal and Spain.
Just over two kilometers away, the silence gives way to the persistent, mechanical hum of the Bocachanza catchment. There, the water’s tone is greener. And back in Pomarão, the inhabitants’ faces are more confused. Asked at the breakfast table about a new water harvesting project near its margin, no one has any idea of what we are talking about.
“The project that foresees a new water catchment to be built by Portugal on the Guadiana river, close to the village of Pomarão, will be a capture system that aims to reinforce water inflows to the Odeleite reservoir, located in the municipality of Castro Marim, in the Algarve”, further down South, “whose water will then be used to supply populations and for agricultural irrigation in the Algarve region”, explains Sara Correia, technician at the environmental association Zero and environmental engineer.
This dislocation will also involve the construction of a water tunnel approximately 40 km long to transport water from the Pomarão catchment to the Odeleite dam.
Furthermore, close to the place where the construction of the catchment is planned to be “there has been, since the 1970s, the Spanish catchment of Bocachanza which, legally, should only have operating until 2003, the date of completion of the Chanza dam, but remains operational to this day, outside of what was negotiated with Portugal”, adds Sara Correia.
The Portuguese Environmental Agency (APA) issued a technical opinion favorable to the catchment of Pomarão reinforcing the water supply in the Algarve, after the conclusion of the environmental impact study conducted by the private consultancy Nemus, which assessed indicators such as economic activities and employment in the exploration phase as ‘positive, very significant’ and environmental indicators in the construction phase of the project, from impact on climate, to hydrogeology and soils assessed mostly as ‘negative, not very significant’ and ‘negative, significant’.
The Sustainable Water Platform (PAS) participated in the public consultation on the Pomarão catchment project to reinforce the Beliche-Odeleite reservoir system.
In the document, PAS expresses the position that “this decision, which naturally has the support of some agrarian sectors, goes against the recommendations of European and national studies and decisions, in particular the Water Framework Directive”, by not valuing the sustainable use of Guadiana water and by not carrying out “comparative studies with other more efficient solutions” for Odeleite, resulting in a “lack of rigor in the evaluation”.
PAS classifies the action as “the mismanagement of the little water we have” and highlights as negative impacts of the project the risk of “damaging, or even extinguishing, ecosystems dependent on the surplus flows that are intended to be captured”, the increase in “already existing salinization in Guadiana” and the increase in energy consumption along with the emission of Greenhouse Gases to effectively guarantee little water, “since all forecasts point to the continuation of low precipitation in the region and a consequent decrease in river flows”.
Local authorities also protested against the catchment, in a unanimous decision approved at a meeting of the intermunicipal council of the Intermunicipal Community of Baixo Alentejo Litoral (CIMBAL) to criticize the project.
The complaint, however, is that the catchment is expected to only reinforce supply in the Algarve, and the municipalities also want a piece.
When contacted for comments on this report, the Portuguese Environment Agency refused an interview, stating it “found no relevance in the request”.
Dams are aplenty, say ecologists — but there are plans to build more
Alongside catchments and transfers, one of the most contentious factors in the water debate in Spain and Portugal is the construction of more dams along rivers.
Although there is consensus among activists and the official position of the National Water Council (CNA) of Portugal regarding the importance of removing obstacles and investing in the conservation of rivers and streams, the subject is quite controversial, with differences of opinion even within the scientific community.
And strong opposition from farmers, in some cases, with support from the local government and inter-municipal communities, who defend the construction and optimization of more dams and water catchments.
In Portugal, there are new dam construction projects on the table. In stretches of national rivers and streams, Alportel, Pisão, Foupana. But also on the Tagus, next to Abrantes.
In Spain today we see the opposite effort, with the removal of obsolete obstacles moving forward with might: Spain is the European country that has demolished the most river barriers, but only in absolute terms. It is also one of the countries with the most dams.
The construction of new dams, in the current context, is “a terrible idea”, says Afonso do Ó. “It is obvious that the dams we have, most of them, are greatly missed and, therefore, we cannot think that we can live without them.”
But, at this moment, especially in the south of the country, the hydraulic potential, which has to do with the river’s level difference, that is, the element that “generates the capacity to retain water and also to produce electricity through discharge”, are conditions practically exhausted in the Iberian Peninsula.
“This has brutal environmental impacts, because it is a cut in the river: it cuts the transport of sediment, it cuts the transposition of fauna, flora, in short, it even cuts the lives of people who had some connection with the river”, he adds.
But for those who depend on water reserves for irrigation, there’s another version of the story. For Diogo Vasconcelos, farmer and president of AJASUL, what is happening “is a very serious lack of water”, that means “we must retain the water that passes through our rivers to use when we do not have any more available”.
The businessman believes that “we are going to have to take the water where it is and to where it doesn’t exist, this will have to be done sooner or later in Portugal, at the risk of abandoning a third of the territory”.
In Alentejo and especially in the Algarve, “there is storage capacity for twice the needs”, says Alice Pisco, from Plataforma Água Sustentável.
“The problem is that it doesn’t rain and the land becomes desertified.” It is also in these territories, most affected by the structural drought in Portugal, such as Spain, especially Andalusia, that water consumption for irrigated agriculture is most intense.
Albufeira’s antecessors: from dams to conventions
The history of regulating the use of river waters shared between Portugal and Spain precedes the Albufeira Convention by more than a century.
This context is especially relevant when considering the fact that the construction of the Alqueva mega-dam was one of the main factors driving the negotiations for the Albufeira Convention: one cannot tell the story of these Portuguese-Spanish treaties without telling the story of the construction of hydroelectric plants in the Iberian Peninsula.
Like its predecessor documents, this one was also motivated by the presence of a new project for the economic use of water resources and the need to divide the gains equally between the two countries. Pedro Cunha Serra says it clearly: “Albufeira was an economic agreement and not an ecological one”.
“The first Portuguese-Spanish river convention dates back to 1867. Therefore, it is more than 150 years old. We had finished, in 1864, limiting the border between the two States, placing border markers”, also on the main rivers, recalls Cunha Serra.
Once the limits were defined, the discussion about the distribution of access, mainly economic, between the two countries, was only resumed 60 years later: “In 1927, it was the Douro’s turn. And why the Douro? Because we were starting to think about the production of hydroelectric energy.”
Spain had a project to carry out, and the result made history. The construction of the Ricobayo dam, on the Esla River, a tributary of the Spanish Douro on its right bank, near the Portuguese city of Miranda do Douro, was the first large hydroelectric plant of its kind to be built in Europe, with a great potential for water storage as well as for energy production.
It was also the first dam to be built of off what would become the network of dams and reservoirs known as ‘Saltos do Douro’ (‘Douro Jumps’), a set of hydroelectric projects built in the border area of the Douro river basin, taking in the provinces of Zamora and Salamanca, in Spain, and the district of Bragança, in Portugal. To this day, it is one of the areas with the greatest hydroelectric potential in the entire Iberian Peninsula.
In 1927, “Spain understood that it should not proceed with the construction of Ricobayo without reaching an understanding with the Portuguese government about the hydroelectric potential of the Douro Basin”, explains Pedro Cunha Serra.
This sharing was made, but the construction of subsequent dams did not progress as expected: the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) interrupted the work-in-progress, and energy production in the Salto de Ricobayo stopped, less than a year after it began. On the Portuguese side, without a viable interlocutor for new negotiations, plans were put on hold again.
After the Civil War ended with the triumph of the fascists, Francisco Franco proved to be a great supporter of the construction of dams in Spain. During the Franco dictatorship (1936-1975), a large part of the dams that are still active today were built in Spanish territory – a pattern that is not strange to other dictatorial regimes in world history, where major works of infrastructure have survived the test of time, including hydroelectric plants.
The idea was to boost the economy during the period of international isolation experienced in Iberian nations after the Second World War; In some cases, residents were forcibly evicted from their homes for the dams to be built, because of the risk of flood that was posed to them.
Portugal followed the trend, with Salazar, supported by União Elétrica Portuguesa (Portuguese Electric Union), also investing in the construction of these structures in the Douro Internacional region in the northeast of Trás-os-Montes.
The 50s and 60s in Portugal and Spain are, therefore, golden decades for the construction of dams. It was also at this time that another important agreement emerged to share the use of shared rivers, in 1964, still referring exclusively to the Douro.
An Iberian international commission of judges was also created to decide on common resources, at a time when kingfishers were still common professions, like station guards, for the railway; men who looked across the rivers and detected problems in their communities.
In 1964, it was enough to split the potential of this international stretch of the Douro in half and move on. But reaching 68, the decision was to take the Minho, Lima, Tagus and Guadiana and divide the hydroelectric potential of these rivers between the two States.
“Already at that time, Spain had the intention of taking water from the Tagus to the Segura basins, in Andalusia, which has a great scarcity of water, but has a good area for agriculture. And Portugal already had the intention of carrying out the Alqueva project, building the dam and developing around 130 or 140 thousand hectares of network in the Alentejo with water from the Guadiana”, says Cunha Serra.
“It was decided that the Spanish would take the Tagus, Portugal would take the Guadiana, Spain would take the Chança, Lima would have to go to Portugal and the Minho would be divided between the two States, to settle accounts.
The Alqueva mega-dam began to be built in the mid-1970s, but soon after it was suspended: Mário Soares was Prime Minister, the country went bankrupt and, therefore, this investment stopped. In 1993 the project was resumed, because the necessary European funds were already guaranteed.
“The Spanish wanted to take water from the Douro to the headwaters of the Tagus, to use the transfer, the Tagus-Segura. And it was this Spanish hydrological plan, from 1993, that reopened the process that would be concluded with the celebration of the convention in 1998”, he adds.
For all this, Paulo Constantino states that “as long as the Albufeira Convention remains [linked to the Additional Protocol], we remain attached to a past and Francoist perspective — I don’t want to say fascist… but from the times of fascism, undoubtedly, Salazarist or Francoist — the concept of water sharing.”
In the second part of this series, we were inspired by part two of the Albufeira Convention, ‘Exploration’, to explain these disputes and the reasons that lead to the accelerated increase in water consumption, especially for irrigation, in times of drought.
These Authors
Luzia Lambuça is a freelance journalist based in Lisbon, Portugal, covering social inclusion, culture, international politics and environmental issues. On the world map, we all look small.
Michele Curel has been a freelance photographer for more than 30 years. Specialised in portrait and architecture, recently engaged in multimedia projects on sustainable forest management and drought since becoming a cork forest landowner.
This cross-border investigation series of in-depth environmental reports made by journalists Luzia Lambuça (Part I), Daniel Borges (Part II) and Emerson Mendoza Ayala (Part III) and photographer Michele Curel, has been supported by JournalismFund Europe and the Ecologist Writers’ Fund.
