The desert is getting closer

[cowboy]

From the Algarve Observer

Drought and Aridity
The desert is getting closer
10/21/2005 8:00:00 AM
The Algarve is progressively becoming a more arid region. Even aside from the years of drought which occur in a cyclical pattern and when, at least theoretically, reserves have been built up again, which are essential for a sufficiently stable and balanced eco-system, the structural shortage of water in the Algarve is increasingly pronounced.

There may have been a situation of extreme drought this year, but a drop in rainfall and an increase in temperature have been becoming more marked over recent years.

The figures mean that there is an urgent need to adopt two types of strategy to deal with two problems which are distinct, although closely related: drought and aridity.

Nuno Santos Loureiro said that, since the beginning of the 1990s, the Faculty of Natural Resources Engineering (FERN) at the University of the Algarve has been monitoring the climatic indicators in the region, recording the interrelationships between the environmental and socio-economic situation and the climate that have occurred in the region.

The monitoring process shows that, in the period from October 1941 to September 2004, the amount of precipitation during each hydrological year has been decreasing at an average rate of –1.67 mm per year.

Regarding temperature and by analysing the period from October 1971 to September 2004, the annual average of daily average temperatures has been increasing each hydrological year by an average of 0.06ºC per year.

And potential evapotranspiration, which is a function of air temperature along with other meteorological parameters, has also been increasing over the years.

The most serious and protracted periods of “extreme drought” have taken place during the second part of the 63 hydrological years that were studied.

It will be recalled that the normal level of rainfall is 510.2 mm (Climatic Normal from 1971/2-2000/1) and the most recent year when it was above average was 1995/96.

Since then, it has been below normal and in 1998/99 it was lowest, with just 152.0 mm.

Temperature increasing steadily.

The temperature situation is even more worrying. The average annual temperature (the arithmetic average of daily average temperatures) has risen continuously at a rate of 0.06ºC per year.

The data suggests that desertification is advancing in the country. Although measures for managing the problem of drought are beginning to be taken by the authorities responsible, the management of the problem of aridity is much more complex, with the specialist warning that it interferes with the regulation and management of the land, with the assignment of land uses and allocation of resources, with major private and public investments, and with options that are not always popular or understood.

According to the researcher, the solutions are not easy to find, and even less so to implement. But he is in no doubt that this complexity must be tackled at regional, national and global levels.

Returning to the drought issues, Santos Loureiro is of the opinion that dialogue between regional and municipal management bodies and consumers must begin immediately, to moderate and rationalise water consumption, with the aim of optimising the use of available resources.

In his opinion, strategies, measures and initiatives are obviously indispensable which are more directed towards the main groups of consumers, i.e. irrigated agriculture, golf courses, public institutions and education establishments, certain sectors of industry, the hotel and restaurant businesses.

This year has already shown that, even though the urban populations of the Algarve have been through a period of drought without feeling directly the shortage of water for consumption, in the rural world the difficulties are huge and the damage is something that people should take note of.

Agriculture, the cattle industry, forestry, bee-keeping and hunting are all sectors that have been hard hit. In an integrated overview of the Algarve region, the report produced by Nuno Loureiro dos Santos warns about some of the facts he considers most relevant:

hydric stress in the vegetation, which gives the countryside an unusually brown colour, with the areas burnt in the summer of 2003 and 2004 dark and practically sterile, water courses that are totally dry and the water table at a worryingly low level.

The dams, which still contain unusually low levels of reserves, and which only have the capacity to continue to supply water for a few more months.

The regional economy, especially agriculture and forestry, which, far from being vigorous, is adversely affected by drought, which is another aspect of pressure in the complex processes of depopulation and desertification of the interior of the Algarve.
For the researcher, who has been studying these areas, and the advancing desertification and drought, people have to come up with a strategy for dealing with these problems, failing which the Algarve which we are creating and will bequeath to our children, will really and irreversibly become an unsustainable
region.

[nightrider]

Hi Cowboy,

Living here in the Algarve and being aware of the problems..well at times it's like banging your head against a brick wall.......drought .....well 5 mins drive away from our home they are constructing two more golf courses, and one of the biggest sports/villas/hotel complex et etc etc etc..................and the name of the game is that the fat cats get fatter....and the poor of Portugal still live as they did 30 years ago.....frankly, if I allowed it I could sit down and cry.....and as for the animals here...
Ah well I can always cheer myself up and go and find the recipe for a Knickerblocker Glory and post it in the Recipe Corner.

Take Care. Nightrider..............

[Johnny Boy]

Hi everyone, Don't forget the F1 car track outside Portomao, and all the visitors that will bring who will require water, toilets, showers. etc
The baragem by use is about 100mtrs below its nomal level.