There are boats on the Douro River that are making illegal discharges and there is no one controlling them. They are identified as one of the causes of river pollution.
But for environmentalists and researchers, this is just one of many problems. There are 22 thousand houses or commercial spaces with direct or indirect sewage to the Douro estuary.
See the full report here.
Source: RTP Notícias; Image: Quentin Marquet, Pixabay.
In the first half of this year alone, there were 11,322 trips on the Douro River, including hotel ships, day cruises or pleasure boats. There are 132 more than registered last year. And, although the Ministry of Economy and the Sea guarantees, to JN, that “hotel ships flying the Portuguese flag all have their own wastewater or sewage treatment system”, the same cannot be said about foreign cruises operating in the Douro. António Costa Silva's office says that they are certified "as local auxiliary vessels", but the "construction process does not pass through Portugal", not ensuring that they have a similar system.
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Source: Jornal de Notícias / Image Credits: Pedro Correia – Arquivo Global Imagens
A study of the Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar of the University of Porto (ICBAS-UP), part of the ATLANTIDA Project (financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the NORTE 2020 Program), and recently published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, demonstrated that the use of pesticides from agricultural practices still has a significant negative impact on the Ave river.
What was, about 30 years ago, one of the most polluted rivers in the country and in Europe, the result of discharges from the textile industry characteristic of that region, continues today to face problems related to the pollution caused by the agricultural exploitation located in its hydrographic basin.
For Maria João Rocha, responsible for the study, these results are very relevant, in the sense that pollution in the Ave River is associated with the presence of industries, often forgetting that the effluents also come from agricultural areas.
Read the full text here.
Source: Notícias UP / Image credits: Câmara Municipal de Vila do Conde
