Water management and planning in a small island archipelago: the Azores case study (Portugal) in the context of the Water Framework Directive

Abstract

Water management is critical in small islands such as the Azores (Portugal), and the present paper address changes that have occurred in the last decades through national constitutional arrangements and the adoption of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The WFD provided an opportunity to implement integrated river basin planning, whose main results are also discussed, surpassing early approaches mainly focused on complying with European Union sanitation goals and eutrophication control. Therefore, new policies emerged, and take into account exemptions that all water bodies will comply with WFD environmental objectives by 2027 (83.7% in 2015). The main constraints are the result of (1) insufficient funding, (2) lack of empowerment by water authority, and (3) no consideration of the economic dimension.

Water Supply and Access to Safe Water in Developing Arid Countries

“…In these contexts, growing population promotes more demand, enhancing difficulties for water management entities. Also, water management may be more complex in insular contexts, especially in small islands, where the marine influence may con-strain the water quality (Cruz et al, 2017). In those cases, the salinization of the groundwater resources often compromises conditions for safe supply (Lima and Garcia, 2011).…”

Groundwater Governance in the Azores Archipelago (Portugal): Valuing and Protecting a Strategic Resource in Small Islands

“…The Azores water authority acts in a vertically-integrated system, being responsible for all nine islands of the archipelago, with representatives on all islands. A synthesis of the evolution of the institutional framework responsible for water management in the Azores is reported in the literature [32].…”

“…In compliance with the WFD and WL requirements two RBD management plans were already developed, the first of which was adopted in March 2013, therefore, with a considerable delay regarding the original planning cycle (2009-2015), while the second, corresponding to the second planning cycle (2016-2021), was completed in due time (December 2015) [31,32,78]. The number and the geometry of the groundwater bodies were kept unchanged from one planning cycle to the other, but, currently, studies are ongoing in order to evaluate the actual delineation of groundwater bodies and proceed to a new one whenever necessary.…”

“…The program of measures proposed along the Azores RBD second planning cycle (2016-2021) comprises a total of 47 measures, namely 18 basic measures and 29 supplementary, corresponding to a total overall budget of 78 million euros (51% to basic measures and 49% to supplementary measures) [31,32]. From the 47 measures to be implemented, 25.5% are directed to a specific water body, while the remaining has a more holistic implementation throughout the RBD.…”

“…The relevance of groundwater governance is even higher in regions such as the Azores archipelago, where groundwater explains about 98% of the overall water supply [30][31][32] and, thus, should be a key issue of the environmental policy ( Figure 1). Water supply is run directly by 15 of 19 municipalities, encompassing about 47.3% of the Azores inhabitants, and in the remaining municipal companies (2; 10.8%) or semi-autonomous utilities are responsible (2; 41.9%) [32], thus, the relationship between groundwater science, instrumental toward sustainable development, and the water supply operations is another factor that should accounted for [33].…”