The Portuguese government has announced a €52.5 million investment in rivers and streams across the Algarve and Alentejo, as part of a nationwide ecological restoration programme.
The funding forms part of Pró-Rios, a national action plan for the ecological restoration of rivers and watercourses, which will see €187 million invested across Portugal by 2029. The programme was unveiled in Lisbon on Monday at a presentation led by the Minister for Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho.
According to the minister, the plan will fund more than 80 interventions covering around 1,000 kilometres of rivers and streams, with an average annual investment of €46 million between now and the end of the decade. She urged local authorities and agencies to act “with ambition and speed” in putting forward and delivering projects.
The objectives of Pró-Rios include reducing flood risk, adapting to climate change, improving the ecological status of river systems, and restoring biodiversity and degraded habitats.
Maria da Graça Carvalho warned that many rivers in Portugal and other countries have been pushed to the brink of “ecological collapse” after decades of being confined, channelled, covered over or used for waste discharge. She pointed to the devastating floods in Valencia in 2024, which claimed more than 200 lives, noting that the confinement of riverbeds worsened the disaster.
As part of the programme, priority interventions will focus on high-risk flood zones, including Lisbon and Algés, as well as works planned for Faro, Albufeira and Tavira, alongside smaller-scale projects across the country. With flood-risk mapping already completed, the identification of urgent cases – such as obsolete barriers and river renaturalisation – will now proceed region by region.
The programme also relies on collaboration with universities, environmental associations and local entities, with the minister acknowledging that the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) cannot deliver the plan alone.
