“I have no doubt that in two to three years, from the point of view of water quantity, we will be completely at ease. We have the dams literally full,” José Pimenta Machado told Lusa, estimating that by the end of February, Portugal will break the record for stored water in the country.

“We are not at 100% because we are releasing water,” he observed.

According to the APA's weekly reservoir bulletin, mainland Portugal had 12,610 cubic hectometres of stored water, 95% of its total capacity. The reservoir with the least water, the Arade (river that flows into Portimão), was at 74%.

In statements to the Lusa news agency, Pimenta Machado stressed that the country went through a "truly exceptional situation," with persistent rains affecting "from Bragança to Faro" following the storms that hit the country in recent weeks.

“It affected the whole country. I don’t recall all the river basins being full,” he stated.

The official recalled that the situation in the south is very different from that in the north, but in the succession of storms, the area that normally has less water, the south, was also affected.

Pimenta Machado pointed to a case that clearly illustrates this reality: the Monte da Rocha dam, which “all Portuguese people know for not having water,” and which this week was releasing surface water because it was “completely full.”

The Alentejo

The Monte da Rocha dam, in the municipality of Ourique, in the Alentejo region, had only filled up once this century, in 2011, but the following years were drought-stricken. Comparing the data from February 2018, it was at 8% of its capacity, and in 2021 it reached 29.4%. Last year it was at 14.5%, and in 2024 it will be at 12.1%.

“The same thing happened in Campilhas, the same thing happened in the Algarve reservoirs,” said the president of the APA, recalling that in 2024 the dams in the Algarve had enough water for five months.

Data indicates that Campilhas, Santiago do Cacém, Alentejo, did not exceed 40% in the last decade (in 2017), and in February 2022, in the middle of winter, it was at 4%.

In Santa Clara, on the Mira River in Odemira, the water level has fluctuated between 66% and 33% in recent years, "and at the moment it is full."

The Algarve


In Bravura, in the municipality of Lagos, the maximum reached in February in the last 10 years was 34.1% in 2022. Two years ago, it was at 12.5%. In Castro Marim, another dam, Odeleite, has never filled up in the last decade.

This year, all the reservoirs are full, which demonstrates "the exceptional nature" that the country went through, and today it is in a more tranquil situation with the rivers returning to their beds. Pimenta Machado admitted that this period "was not easy." "From a professional point of view, I have never experienced such a difficult moment," he acknowledged.

Even in the Algarve, effective management of the Arade and Funcho dams in the Arade basin was necessary. "As far as I can remember, the Arade River hasn't had any water since 2018. The Arade had to discharge several days in a row," he observed.

The Chança River, a tributary of the Guadiana on the Spanish side, also reached levels of 1,100 cubic metres per second.

“I don’t recall ever discharging into the Guadiana River, which at its mouth reached flows of around 6,000 cubic metres per second,” he noted.

Pimenta Machado recalled that the storms entered through the Atlantic, affected Portugal and then went to Spain, and from the Spanish basins the water returned to Portugal, a difficulty compounded by the “additional difficulty” of the snow (which, turning into water, ran off into the rivers), especially the Mondego and Zêzere.

“We always have great difficulty in understanding the significance of the snowmelt for the river's flow,” he said, recalling that the fires of last summer also had an influence, such as in the Serra do Açor, where the weakened vegetation and soils that did not retain water worsened the situation.