After 25 years of negotiations, Spain and Portugal have achieved reach an agreement in each and every one of the terms contemplated in the Albufeira Conventionthe document that regulates the use and conservation of waters shared between both countries.
The milestone was achieved during the Spanish-Portuguese Summit held recently in Faro (Portugal), where both governments reached an agreement to regulate the monthly flow regime in the last section of the Guadiana located in the Pomarão section, the only cross-border point where until now the details regarding shared management had not been defined. The parties finally opted for a monthly regulation with a regime of ecological flows of 90 hm3 (60 hm3 for Spain and 30 hm3 for Portugal) and formally recognized the water intake from the Pomarão (Portugal) and Bocachanza (Spain) stations, establishing a different catchment volume for socioeconomic uses depending on the recorded rainfall: in dry periods 30 cubic hectometers per year will be allowed; in intermediate periods, 60, and in humid seasons the volume of collections is not limited. If the year is very dry, the water must be allocated entirely to the ecological flow. In this way, it ensures a sufficient amount of water in the estuary to preserve aquatic fauna and prevent the entry of the saline wedge.
The two countries have also committed to establishing a daily flow for the maintenance of the circulating flows of the Tagus River from the Cedillo dam and have agreed to carry out a progressive regularization of the historical uses of the Guadiana River in the section between the Caya and Cuncos rivers. The new criteria set for these two rivers must later be extended to the rest of the shared demarcations: Miño, Limia and Duero.
Furthermore, the agreement defines an annual and quarterly comprehensive flow regime for each control station. Additionally, at the stations of Miranda (Duero, in Portugal), Saucelle and Águeda (Duero, in Spain) and Cedillo (Tajo, in Spain) a minimum weekly regime has also been established.
A pact for sustainability
The objective of the new agreement is equitably distribute resources available water but, above all, guarantee the good ecological status of the flows respecting the state of the channels based on the seasonal needs of the aquatic environment. In short, the new terms have been designed in order to adapt the Albufeira Convention and management of shared water resources to the new reality marked by periods of scarcity and not to calendars that require periodic discharges without taking into account weather conditions. In this way, it is intended that exchanges be carried out in an orderly and staggered manner. avoiding ecological damage which occurs in the rivers and swamps when Spain withholds sending the agreed quotas to Portugal until the deadline and ends up releasing the entire stipulated amount of water at once.
The new agreements represent significant progress but there are more and more voices advocating for conduct an in-depth review of transfers of water included in the agreement and adapt them to the current conditions of the Iberian Peninsula, one of the territories most affected by the climate crisis. However, many of the measures were written based on the average rainfall recorded between 1960 and 1990, but current values are much lower. it is difficult to comply with the stipulated minimum flow rates. The controversy arose after the drought that took place between 2004 and 2006 that gave rise to the Additional Protocol of 2008 where the flow regime went from annual to minimum weekly and quarterly flows. In 2022 the situation worsened even more when, with reservoirs at minimum levels, Spain announced that it could not fully comply with the agreed quotas.
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