Mondego canal repairs completed as APA reviews 2026 flood recommendations

Mondego canal rebuilt to keep water flowing after the February breach

The works that allow “the water to flow” were completed three months after the breach recorded on 11 February, following winter storms that triggered flooding with major impacts, including the failure of a dyke in the central bed of the Mondego.

According to the Minister for the Environment, Maria da Graça Carvalho, the operation made it possible to rebuild the destroyed section of the main conveyance canal and to rehabilitate the reinforced-concrete lining between the breach point and the Coimbra Weir, safeguarding water supply in both quantity and quality for the different uses.

At the same time, structural work on the dykes is continuing after an initial emergency phase. “Deeper, more structural works are now moving ahead,” the minister said, pointing to the reconstruction of the structures, the canal platform and the maintenance road, as well as protection for critical points such as the A1 viaduct area.

Investment, dyke recovery and 15 kilometres of flow-improvement works

The intervention also covers the recovery of the collapsed dyke and works along around 15 kilometres of the canal to improve drainage and flow. Investment totals €14 million by the end of the year, with a further €5 million earmarked for 2027.

“The immediate priority was to secure the irrigation season, in a region that is highly dependent on this system,” José Pimenta Machado, president of the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), told Expresso. He added that, from 2027 onwards, a “regular maintenance plan for the system, including vegetation clearance and structural strengthening” is expected to begin. The issue of siltation, meanwhile, will be put forward through an application for European funds.

10 proposals on the table, one rejected

The ongoing interventions are framed by the conclusions of the technical report on the 2026 floods, delivered this Friday to the APA and to the Minister for the Environment by the working group of the Portuguese Engineers’ Association.

Among the ten or so recommendations is the creation of a public company to manage the entire Mondego basin, along the lines of EDIA at Alqueva. The Government, however, has ruled out that option. Instead, Maria da Graça Carvalho argues for a co-management model that brings together local decision-makers and direct users of the system - such as local authority leaders, farmers and industrial operators - alongside the APA. “We will make effective what happened in the difficult days of the crisis,” she said, calling for closer engagement and continuous on-the-ground oversight. The APA president likewise stressed that, during the crisis, these bodies “formed a true team”, a model the executive wants to entrench.

The minister also reiterated the need to simplify the administrative processes linked to this kind of intervention. “A tangle of procedures has been created; the complexity is enormous,” she said, arguing for mechanisms to be “lightened”, especially in emergencies. “Maintenance has to be done over the years and day in, day out - not only before the floods,” she added.

Other recommendations in the report have been received more positively. One is to reduce the maximum level of the Aguieira dam to increase its capacity to absorb extreme events. “This winter we lowered the level to 114,70 metres, as has never been done before,” Pimenta Machado noted, maintaining that in future it should continue to be “lowered to accommodate floods” and then restored to higher levels at the height of summer.

Another option under consideration is building the Girabolhos dam, which could help mitigate flooding, although “there is no such thing as zero risk”, the APA president warned. The minister said the project should go out to public tender by the end of May, pending only the completion of data collection by the municipalities involved. In Maria da Graça Carvalho’s account, local leaders want the future infrastructure to “include urban water supply, in addition to the other planned uses”, with that component still under review.

The project will, however, have to undergo a new environmental impact assessment. Pimenta Machado added that the dam “will be multi-purpose and its main objective will be to dampen floods”. Environmental campaigners and others have warned that this dam is a false solution.

The report also recommends reviewing how the dykes interact with infrastructure such as the A1, after repeated collapses in the same area, alongside an assessment of drainage systems and the possible raising of the dykes. The management of vegetation along the Mondego’s banks is another contested point. While the engineers argue for removing trees to improve flow, other specialists caution against the environmental impacts of such work. Pimenta Machado acknowledges the controversy, but says the Lower Mondego “is a heavily artificialised system geared towards agricultural purposes”.