Quercus, the environmental NGO based in Lisbon, has come out firmly against the planned Foupana dam in the Algarve municipalities of Alcoutim and Castro Marim. The association argues that it would destroy the last large ecological corridor left untouched in the Sotavento (eastern Algarve), threaten protected species, and worsen the region’s water shortages.
The group also accuses the promoters of said project of trying to pave the way for more intensive irrigation, particularly for nearby avocado plantations. It is crucially calling on the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) to issue an unfavourable Environmental Impact Declaration.
The position is set out in an unfavourable opinion piece submitted to the project, which is headed by the Associação de Regantes do Sotavento Algarvio. Public consultation closes tomorrow, Friday 16 October. The process has so far drawn 229 submissions, which can be read on the Participa.pt portal.
In a statement, Quercus warns of “significant and irreversible negative impacts” on biodiversity, ecological connectivity, soils, landscape, and the region’s sociocultural heritage. It says the mitigation measures in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) simply cannot make up for the forecasted damage.
Quercus wants the public money earmarked for the dam spent elsewhere, whether that be cutting water losses, improving efficiency, reusing treated wastewater, or backing farming methods better suited to a Mediterranean climate. Also, the association questions whether a large reservoir makes sense in an area so exposed to climate change. It warns that an investment it puts at tens of millions of euros could prove a costly mistake if the dam ends up not being able to store enough water to meet its aims.
According to the group, flows in the Foupana basin have already fallen sharply, and the trend could worsen in the decades ahead. The climate projections cited by the group point to a drop in average annual rainfall of between 8% and 26%, along with more frequent and more severe droughts. Temperatures in the region could climb by between 2C and 4C, increasing evaporation losses.
Taken together, Quercus argues, those factors could undermine the reservoir’s storage capacity and, with it, the return on the investment, questioning the point of a project that could never repay either its financial costs or its environmental toll.
Additionally, in its submission Quercus draws a direct line between the proposed dam and the spread of thirsty crops across the Sotavento, pointing in particular to the severe toll of avocados and other subtropical fruit on the region’s water resources. By its figures, the region’s production of these crops rose by 96% between 2013 and 2023.
The fact that the dam is backed by an irrigators’ association, it says, shows the real aim is to intensify irrigation, when the priority should be adapting farming to the climate and the water available. New storage, it adds, could encourage thirsty crops to stay and spread rather than prompting a switch to more sustainable models.
The group instead argues in favour of modernising distribution networks and tackling water losses, which it describes as particularly high in some municipalities, Castro Marim amongst them. Reusing treated wastewater for farming is another solution it highlights.
Beyond water supply, Quercus warns of the potential impact on habitats and protected species. The project partly overlaps the land upon which Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) roams within the Algarve, with the animal classed as vulnerable and the focus of conservation and reintroduction programmes. The association says the dam could create new barriers to the animals’ movements and raise the risk of road deaths, undermining much-lauded recovery efforts.
It also describes the Foupana as the last major stream in the Algarve still free of artificial barriers. Damming it would alter its natural flow, with knock-on effects for aquatic and riverbank ecosystems. Quercus points to the migration of 15 fish species, as well as the loss of riverside woodland, native vegetation, and stretches of holm oak and cork oak.
Birdlife could suffer too, through lost habitat and nesting sites, in an area where Quercus says 95 bird species have been sighted.
The association finds it especially worrying that the Environmental Impact Assessment itself rates some mitigation measures as having just “moderate effectiveness”. In Quercus’s reading, that means the proposed safeguards will not prevent significant, irreversible damage to the area’s natural assets.
Alexandra Azevedo, president of Quercus’s national board, says the dam runs against the need to adapt the territory to climate change and dwindling water resources.
“In a scenario of worsening climate change and prolonged drought trends, building yet another large dam is, in truth, a perverse incentive to perpetuate an unsustainable farming model, which could mortgage the last major free ecological corridor of the Sotavento Algarvio,” she said.
Quercus insists the answer to water scarcity cannot rest on new dams alone, demanding a regional strategy that cuts consumption, improves the efficiency of existing systems, and favours farming suited to the region’s climate.
Source: Quercus
Photo credit: Jorge Duarte Estevão
