Good morning. Today's Pulse leans towards water and waste: a record-dry July, urgent repairs beneath Leiria, and a region rethinking where its rubbish goes.
The whole of mainland Portugal is now in meteorological drought after the driest July of the century, marked by an intense heatwave between 29 June and 11 July that set new absolute temperature records. The IPMA notes it was also the seventh warmest July since 1931, while the Azores had a cold, rainy month and Madeira stayed hot and dry.
Portugal has never imported so many agricultural products, deepening its dependence on foreign food. With droughts worsening and international markets unstable, the article warns that domestic production covers less than 20% of certain needs.
With the landfills at Loulé and Portimão close to full and 85% of the region's waste still buried, the Environment Ministry will launch a tender on 15 October to study a waste-to-energy plant for the Algarve. A permanent solution is only expected by 2035, so the existing landfills will be temporarily expanded.
The municipality is starting urgent works on a 44-metre stretch of the historic culvert running beneath the lower town, damaged by the January and February storms. The 432,000-euro intervention begins with cleaning and diagnosis next Monday and repairs from 31 August, to prevent collapses and flooding.
An Urban Rehabilitation Operation in Aldeia do Vale, in the Serra de Sicó, encourages owners to restore the village's built heritage. The plan tries to combine better public space and socio-economic activity with the village's historic character.
In four months, Madeirans have returned around 1.8 million containers through the new deposit-return scheme, with queues at collection points showing strong uptake even as the system still needs adjustments. The same edition reports that Funchal's marina reopens in September, almost three years after closing.
INE data for 2024 show Marinha Grande producing the most urban waste per inhabitant in the Leiria region. It is also the municipality that sends the largest share of that waste to recycling through separate collection.
Pedro Dias, Porto Santo's first certified organic winegrower, has turned Quinta do Pilha Gatos into a reference for the listrão grape. High costs still keep the work part-time, and he argues for stricter oversight to protect the island's traditional vineyard landscape.
Carlos Reis, president of the Adega de Cantanhede, describes Expofacic as a shop window for the cooperative and for the wider region. The co-op has attended every edition and shows its range, including award-winning wines, at an institutional stand and a quieter lounge space.
A short read every morning — what's happening across sustainable Portugal.
