Role of high mountain areas in catchment hydromineral resources – Northern/Central Portugal: environmental issues

Abstract

This study summarizes the results of geological, geomorphological, tectonic, geochemical, geophysical, hydrogeological and isotopic techniques in hydromineral resources assessment (issue temperature between 27ºC and 45ºC). Two case studies are presented: i) Serra da Estrela mountain region, the highest mountain in Portuguese mainland and ii) Serra do Marão mountain region. A special emphasis is dedicated to the recharge and discharge processes and the role of snowmelt as a source of hydromineral resources. Since local Spas are particularly dependent on water quality, the existence of mixing between hydromineral waters and local shallow groundwaters is also considered.

Evaluation of water resources in a high-mountain basin in Serra da Estrela, Central Portugal, using a semi-distributed hydrological model

“…2, 3). As pointed out by the morphostructural and isotopic data (e.g., Espinha Marques et al 2006a;Marques et al 2008), discharge areas of shallow aquifers may act simultaneously as recharge areas of the deep thermomineral aquifer since they correspond to the most permeable zones of the granitic massif which are associated to deep tectonic structures. The recharge of the thermomineral aquifer is not well known though possibly is not large because of the low permeability of the granites.…”