The Faro City Council aims to invest 15 million euros in implementing a plan to mitigate urban floods, especially in critical areas, in a project that also includes replacing part of the water distribution network.
The execution of the general plan for Faro’s rainwater drainage, presented today, will proceed in two phases, the first “technically much more complex,” the city’s president, António Miguel Pina, told reporters.
“[The plan] consists of a connection from the São Luís area to Ribeira das Lavadeiras and, then, in a second phase, the treatment of this area of Ribeira das Lavadeiras as well. This is the project. In the first phase, 10 million, in the second phase, another five million,” the administrator detailed.
The second phase, whose project is being completed, will be coordinated with the Alameda 21 project, which includes the creation of an urban park in the Penha area near Ribeira das Lavadeiras, he added.
The objective of the plan is to eliminate the systematic floods in the São Luís area, where several small businesses suffer losses frequently, and to help mitigate the problem of water accumulation also in the Penha area.
During the presentation, listing the floods recorded in that area of the city since 2021, expert José Saldanha Matos considered that the sum of the damage already caused in these years reaches “nearly 10 million” euros, which is the investment planned for the first phase.
The full professor, founder of Hidra, the company responsible for developing the plan, stressed that this is an integrated and strategic plan, noting that its execution will not be completed in two years (the estimated duration of the works), pointing to its full realization over a period of 10 years.
Questioned by journalists about whether its execution guarantees that floods will not recur in São Luís, Saldanha Matos replied that, over a 100-year return period, taking into account the forecast effects of climate change and sea level rise, there is an “almost absolute” guarantee that the intervened area will not experience floods anymore.
But he issued a warning: “Now, what does this imply? It also implies that the system must be maintained. […] Therefore, maintained, this security is guaranteed. Now, what we are doing here is part of the plan; the plan does not end here,” he stressed.
On that occasion, specialist Filipa Ferreira noted that this is a project that is “difficult to carry out” and at a very great depth, so the aim is to continuously “open and close” as the works progress, in order to “not leave the city exposed,” noting that in São Luís there is planned the installation of “many large grates, from sidewalk to sidewalk,” to intercept the water and send it to the collector.
Present at the session were also merchants with businesses on Rua de São Luís, who, although they have been waiting for years for the situation to be resolved, expressed concerns about the project’s schedule and the impact it will have on their businesses.
Owner of a pastry shop on Rua de São Luís, Elisabete argued for the urgency of the work, but reminded that it must be carried out in the shortest possible time so that the businesses there do not disappear.
“(…) Because, otherwise, the small businesses will die if the work is not completed in the shortest possible time,” she insisted, recalling that in order to manage her business it is necessary to know the duration and scheduling of the works.
