The Algarve Situation Report Wednesday 21 August 2024
By Mike Evans
A very warm welcome to you after my absence of a couple of weeks. During this time of being away the temperatures across the Algarve have risen considerably and with the hot weather the subject of water or the lack of it rears its head again. According to the latest figures and report issued by the IMPA almost 40% of mainland Portugal was in moderate and severe meteorological drought at the end of July, according to the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere ( IPMA ) in its climatological bulletin for last month.
According to the document released, there was an increase in the area of moderate and severe meteorological drought in the southern region, affecting the districts of Faro , Beja, Évora, Setúbal and Portalegre.
According to the IPMA, the month of July in mainland Portugal was classified as hot in relation to air temperature and normal in relation to precipitation. It was the ninth warmest July since 2000, with the average air temperature, 23.15 degrees Celsius (°C), being 0.65 °C higher than the value recorded between 1981 and 2010.
Te minimum temperature recorded the eighth highest value since 2000, at 16.12°C, an anomaly of +0.28°C above the normal value. The maximum temperature, with an average value of 30.17°C, also represents an anomaly of +1.02°C above the normal value.
In terms of precipitation, it was the eighth rainiest July since 2000. The IPMA recalls that the beginning of the month had minimum temperatures well below normal, especially on the 7th and 8th, and that the hottest day of the year was recorded on the 23rd.
However, there is some good news for those whose livelihood depends on agriculture. A partnership is underway for the Use of Small Hydro-Agricultural Structures in the Sotavento and Northeast Algarve after the publication of an Executive Order No. 184/2024/1, of August 13, signed by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, José Manuel Fernandes, has now been published, reclassifying the works of the Hydro-Agricultural Projects in four areas of the municipalities of Alcoutim and Castro Marim, announced the Algarve Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR).
The hydro-agricultural development works will take place in Pão Duro (23.5 ha) and Vaqueiros (35 ha), in the parish of Vaqueiros, municipality of Alcoutim, and in Almada de Ouro (31.6 ha), in the parishes of Azinhal and Odeleite, and Caroucha (50 ha), in the municipality of Castro Marim, each encompassing an embankment dam and irrigation networks that supply water to the respective collective irrigation perimeters.
“The need to adapt the management model to the complexity and importance of these four hydro-agricultural developments, built in the 1980s and 1990s, is reflected, above all, at a local level, with the high collective impact of the added value associated with the availability of water for irrigation and the potential use of reservoirs, preparing the region for a future with more frequent and severe droughts”, highlights the CCDR in a statement. “In addition to this justification, there is the technical complexity inherent in the conservation, operation and management of dams and other infrastructures and the possibility of accessing the concession regime, only provided for works in groups I, II and III”, the note continues.
This marks “another stage in this strategy of reconciling human and social development in areas of the Algarve’s interior and greater efficiency in water use, ensuring the availability of water for agriculture”, he concludes.
For the rest of us we will have to continue to save water and hope that the taps don’t run dry before the end of the summer and before the usual winter rains appear.
Now a look at some of the other stories from across the region.
AMN rescues three children in difficulty at Cacela Velha bar
On Sunday, August 18, members of the “SeaWatch” Project rescued three children, aged five, six and 10, who were in difficulty in the water, in an unsupervised area, after being swept away by the current, at the Cacela Velha bar, in Vila Real de Santo António , indicated the National Maritime Authority (AMN).
During a surveillance operation in that area, members of the “SeaWatch” Project detected three children in need of assistance, in difficulty in the water, after having been swept away by the strong current. The victims were quickly rescued and taken to land.
According to AMN, the children were physically well and did not need medical assistance.The National Maritime Authority reinforced its advice against bathing in the Cacela Velha bar area due to the dangers it poses.
AMN assists four crew members of a vessel without propulsion in Olhão
On Thursday, August 15, crew members from the Olhão Lifeboat Station assisted four crew members (three men and one woman) from a recreational vessel that ran out of propulsion one nautical mile (about two kilometres) from Barra do Lavajo, also known as Barra da Armona, in the municipality of Olhão , indicated the National Maritime Authority (AMN).
Following an alert received at 2:54 p.m., through the master of the vessel recreation, the crew of the Olhão Lifeguard Station and elements of the local Command of the Olhão Maritime Police were immediately activated.
Upon arrival at the vessel, the AMN found that the four crew members were physically well, without needing medical assistance, and the crew of the Lifeguard Station proceeded to tow the vessel, for reasons of safety for the people and navigation, to the Olhão Naval Group pier.
Motorcyclist seriously injured in collision with light vehicle
A collision between a motorcycle and a light vehicle, in Pardieiro, Monchique, left one person seriously injured on Tuesday, the 13th, who was transferred by helicopter to the hospital in Faro , revealed a source from Civil Protection. “It was a collision between a light vehicle and a motorcycle, which resulted in a seriously injured woman, aged 20, of Portuguese nationality, the driver of the motorcycle,” said a source from the Algarve Regional Emergency and Civil Protection Command.
The woman was transported by ambulance from the secondary road where the accident occurred, at around 4:40 pm, to the Monchique heliport, from where she was transported to the Faro hospital in the National Institute of Medical Emergency ( INEM ) helicopter.
Region reduces water consumption in tourist developments by 14%
Until July, tourist developments in the Algarve that signed up to the “Save Water” seal recorded a 14% reduction in overall consumption and an 18% reduction in specific water consumption (consumption per overnight stay), RTA reported.
The figures are included in the 2nd report on monitoring water consumption and the application of water efficiency measures prepared by the Energy Agency (ADENE), as part of the Algarve’s Commitment to Water Efficiency .
Among the more than 2,300 water efficiency measures selected by those participating in the plan coordinated by the Algarve Tourism Board (RTA), in conjunction with Turismo de Portugal and ADENE, interventions at the level of devices and irrigation systems, improvements in the management and maintenance system and in equipment are the most selected by tourism enterprises located in the Algarve region. More than half (53%) of these selected measures have already been implemented. Around 75% of those who sign up to the “Save Water” seal are concentrated in four Algarve municipalities – Albufeira, Loulé, Portimão and Lagoa –, which are also those with the largest number of beds available.
For André Gomes, president of RTA, “these results reflect the efforts of the tourism sector to combat water scarcity in the Algarve. Business owners are very mobilised to face this challenge. The Save Water seal was implemented in March and by July it already represented more than 30% of the beds available in tourist establishments in the region, which reflects the sector’s commitment to adopting measures and behaviours that allow saving this essential resource”, he highlights.
Dinosaur footprints discovered on Algarve beach
A site with 12 footprints from different dinosaurs is being revealed on Arrifes beach, in Albufeira, among other discoveries, elevating this location within the territory of the Algarvensis Geopark project to a global geosite, a researcher has revealed.
In addition to the set of 12 footprints, belonging to five dinosaurs from three different species, which roamed the area around 120 million years ago, Arrifes beach hides other treasures, invisible to the eyes of tourists who go swimming in the small cove whose sand almost disappears at high tide.
The scientific advisor of the Algarvensis Geopark project, Octávio Mateus, said that those rocks are recorded as being “a few million years old”, with marks of crustaceans, shells, whelks and single-celled beings, although the most impressive are the marks left by dinosaurs, in the lower Cretaceous period. Only accessible at low tide and to those willing to climb over rocks, the site with 12 footprints, some of which are in sequence and three-dimensional, reveals the presence of large sauropods, including brontosaurus, the long-necked dinosaurs popularised by cinema. But, this enormous dinosaur, whose footprints reach half a metre in length, is joined on this trail by small sauropods, also herbivores, and three carnivorous animals, all in a crack between two layers in the cliff, made when those rocks were still in a horizontal position.
120 million years ago, the footprints were imprinted in the mud, which was covered with limestone and sand, and after the sediment below had eroded, the natural shape of the footprint was left. The cliffs ‘rotated’ to their current position due to tectonic movement, explained the palaeontologist, a professor at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
“There are tectonic forces related to rock salt deposits, or by plates, crustal movements, causing it to fold and roll, and what was horizontal became vertical”, he explained, highlighting that this is a “major discovery”, which makes that beach a “geosite of global importance”.
At the beginning of the trail, a rock shows the seabed from a good few million years ago, bearing witness to the trail of crustaceans, similar to crabs and lobsters, which made galleries and excavated the sand which, over time, was filled with more sand. Further ahead, heading east, on the face of another cliff also threatened by the action of the sea, four footprints are revealed forming a trail, all measuring more than 20 centimetres, of an ornithopod dinosaur that would have been four metres long.
The first deposit had been documented since 2016, but had not been studied, work that is now being done as part of the application of the territory of Loulé, Albufeira and Silves to become a global geopark of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO ).
However, discovering the “paternity” of the findings is not simple. “The current scientific coordinator of the Algarvensis Geopark, Paulo Fernandes said that it had been discovered during one of his field classes by a student, but the date is unknown. It must have been between 2014 and 2016. The sauropod footprints in the crevice were mentioned for the first time in a conference summary in 2016, but it doesn’t mention who discovered them,” said Octávio Mateus. However, as far as he knows, the ornithopod tracks are “absolutely new” and were discovered by him on June 12 this year.
Two men rob a nightclub in Loulé and flee on a motorbike
Two men robbed a nightclub in the parish of Boliqueime , in the municipality of Loulé, on Sunday the 11th, and fled the scene on a motorbike with money taken from a safe, a source from the GNR revealed .
“At around 9:00 am, two individuals, using physical force, managed to get the money that was in a safe to be handed over to them,” said a source from the Public Relations Department of the GNR’s Faro Territorial Command. The two men entered the nightclub, which was already closed, in a manner that the GNR is still investigating and, once inside the establishment, “they used force to get the money to be handed over to them”, he explained. The source was unable to specify the number of employees present at the establishment, but indicated that they did not require hospital assistance.
The robbers “fled on a motorbike”, with an amount of money yet to be determined, said the GNR source, confirming the existence of surveillance cameras at the site and that the case is already being investigated.
Three people died in the first three months of the bathing season
Three people died on Portuguese beaches in the first three months of this year’s bathing season, between May and July, with all cases occurring in the Algarve, and 403 rescues were recorded, the National Maritime Authority ( AMN ) recently revealed.
Since the last report up to June 30, which indicated two fatalities on Portuguese beaches, the AMN recorded another death on the supervised sea beach Maria Luísa, in Albufeira , which occurred on July 16 for “unknown causes”.
The other two deaths recorded since the start of the bathing season, on May 1, were also in the Algarve and both were due to “sudden illness”, with the first situation occurring on May 27 in an unsupervised maritime area in Algar de Benagil, in Lagoa, and the second on June 6 at the supervised maritime beach of Meia Praia, in Lagos, informed the Maritime Authority. In 2023, in the first three months of the bathing season, there were seven deaths on the beaches, four of which were due to drowning and three due to “sudden illness”.
In the three months that have passed since this year’s bathing season, between May 1 and July 31, in addition to three fatalities, the AMN recorded 403 rescues and 1,907 first aid actions on the sea and river or lake beaches under its jurisdiction.
According to the balance of the first two months of the bathing season, in which 133 rescues and 584 first aid actions were recorded, according to data from the Maritime Authority, in July 270 rescues and 1,323 first aid actions were carried out on Portuguese beaches.
The 2024 bathing season runs from May 1 to October 30, and municipalities may establish, within this period, the specific season for each area.
If you are going to the beach please be aware of all the dangers that could be around you and have a safe week.