Portugal's Rivers and Aquifers Have Slipped Backwards Over Three Planning Cycles, the Environment Agency Admits, as Work Starts on the 2028 to 2033 Plans

Portugal is not on course to meet the water-quality objectives it set for its rivers and aquifers, and the state agency that wrote them now asks, in its own documents, why they have not been reached. The Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente (Portuguese Environment Agency, APA) has just closed a six-month public consultation on the Questões Significativas da Gestão da Água (Significant Water Management Issues), the first formal step towards the river basin plans that will run from 2028 to 2033. In each of the eight mainland river basin districts, the report opens with the same finding: the state of rivers, reservoirs, estuaries and aquifers has regressed slightly over the three planning cycles run so far.

The environmental group Zero drew attention to that admission on Sunday, in a statement on the consultation, which ended on 20 September. "Recognising the failure is not enough," it said, according to Lusa. The group argues that the new documents still do not answer the central question: how to make sure the next cycle does not fail in the same way.

How much water is in good condition

Under the EU Water Framework Directive, every water body should reach "good" status, a combined test of ecology and chemistry for surface water and of quantity and chemistry for groundwater. The APA reports give the approximate share that currently meets it in each district:

• Minho and Lima: about 65 percent of surface water and all groundwater bodies in good status.
• Cávado, Ave and Leça: 49 percent of surface water, and only 25 percent of groundwater.
• Douro: 52 percent of surface water; all groundwater good.
• Vouga, Mondego and Lis: 48 percent of surface water, 68 percent of groundwater.
• Tejo and Ribeiras do Oeste (Tagus and western streams): 40 percent of surface water, 60 percent of groundwater.
• Sado and Mira: 37 percent of surface water, the lowest share on the mainland, and 67 percent of groundwater.
• Guadiana: 40 percent of surface water and 38 percent of groundwater.
• Ribeiras do Algarve (Algarve streams): 62 percent of surface water, 72 percent of groundwater.

Why the measures did not work

The APA reports frame the problem with four questions: whether investment was too low to tackle the main pressures, whether the plans' measures were too generic, whether government and economic sectors were committed, and whether governance was clear. They trace the damage to current activity (farming, industry and urban wastewater), past activity (abandoned mines and contaminated land) and rising demand.

Zero's reading of the numbers is blunter. It says the data point to financial execution of about 12 percent of the current plans' measures in 2022 and 2023, with 315 measures postponed and just 58 recorded as carried out. Zero's statement, as reported, does not name the document behind those figures. The period matches the APA's interim evaluation of the third-cycle programme of measures, which covers 2022 and 2023, was drawn up in 2024, and is cited in the new reports as one of their starting points. Zero wants the fourth cycle to rest on "measures with measurable objectives, deadlines, guaranteed funding and effective follow-up".

What happens next

The timetable is fixed in each report. The draft plans for 2028 to 2033, with their programmes of measures, go to a further six-month public consultation in the first half of 2027. The final plans must be reported to the European Commission through its Water Information System for Europe (WISE) by the end of 2027. The current plans, for 2022 to 2027, were approved by Resolução do Conselho de Ministros (Council of Ministers Resolution) n.º 62/2024 of 3 April.

Water quantity is a separate strain: this month three basins in the north were below their September average.