“We will invest over 30 million euros overall, with the regional operational program funding 75%, which is good news,” stated the president of the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), José Pimenta Machado, aboard a boat on the Douro River, where the protocol was signed, on a journey between the banks of Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto.
The official also considered it “good news” that the APA, through the Environmental Fund, and the municipalities are sharing the non-co-financed portion (2.5% for the APA and 2.5% for the municipalities).
The collaboration protocol “Water Resources Management — River Contracts” was signed today between the Northern Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR-N), the APA, and the municipalities involved.
Also present on the occasion, the Minister of Environment, Maria da Graça Carvalho, noted that the protocol and the signed contracts are part of the Government’s “Water that Unites” agenda, specifically in the section on “river renaturalization and flood and inundation control,” indicating an investment value of 33.5 million euros.
The minister also emphasized the “technical monitoring that the APA will provide for these projects,” considering it a “program of territorial cohesion but also cohesion among public institutions that, together – the CCDR, the APA, and the municipalities – will work in favor of nature, the environment, and people’s lives.”
In response to some remarks and requests made by some local authorities during the ceremony, Maria da Graça Carvalho stated that “local authorities are essential,” highlighting that “it is not possible, at the moment, to implement projects against the will of the local authorities and the populations.”
The president of the CCDR-N, António Cunha, stated that “sustainable water management, water security, and the quality of public supply and sanitation services are no longer merely technical or comfort issues; they are increasingly matters of environmental justice, territorial coherence, and community resilience.”
“In the case of the North region, they are an unavoidable priority,” he assured.
The package will fund interventions in 17 Significant Potential Flood Risk Areas (ARPSI) throughout the North, divided among three hydrographic regions: Minho and Lima, Cávado, Ave and Leça, and Douro.
Specifically, the interventions range from riverbed restorations, bank stabilization using natural engineering techniques, restoration of riparian zones, creation of retention basins, desilting and natural floodplain areas, drafting of emergency flood plans, water level monitoring, and dam modernization.
In Minho and Lima, the work concerns five fluvial ARPSI: Monção (river Minho, financed at 1.8 million euros), Caminha (river Coura, 832,000 euros), Valença (river Minho, 1.07 million euros), Ponte da Barca and Arcos de Valdevez (rivers Lima and Vez, 1.4 million euros) and Ponte de Lima (river Lima, 404,000 euros).
In the Cávado, Ave, and Leça basins, the five fluvial ARPSI concerned are: Braga-Este (river Este, 2.1 million euros), Braga – Padim da Graça (river Cávado, 548,000 euros), Esposende (river Cávado, 828,000 euros), Póvoa de Varzim (river Alto, 441,000 euros), and Santo Tirso (river Ave, 739,000 euros).
In the Douro basin, seven interventions in ARPSI are planned: in Amarante (river Tâmega, 1.4 million euros), in Baião (river Teixeira, 1.9 million euros), in Chaves (river Tâmega, 2.2 million euros), in Lousada (rivers Mezio and Sousa, 774,000 euros), in Mirandela (river Tua, 1.5 million euros), in Régua (river Douro, 1.8 million euros), and in Porto – Vila Nova de Gaia (river Douro, 2.5 million euros).
The interventions aim to “strengthen the resilience of the highest flood risk areas through the implementation of concrete measures for prevention, protection, planning, and water rehabilitation,” according to the CCDR-N.
