Do Stakeholder Forum

Subtask Description:
Scenario comparison.

Action points of the implementation:

  1. Provide a summary of each of the scenarios in a comparative way in order to point out differences
  2. Give time to the audience to reflect and to ask open questions

Area:
Guadiana Estuary, Portugal (& Spain)

Policy Issue:
Management of the discharges of untreated wastewater into the estuarine environment

Human Activities:
Energy production, tourism, urban activity, agriculture and livestock farming, aquaculture.

General Information:
The estuary is the natural border between Portugal and Spain. On both sides of the estuary, especially in Spain, urban development is taking place, mainly associated with tourism and threatens to increase the inputs of pollutants, namely nutrients and bacteria. Nutrient input is expected to change, not only due to fertilizer application on golf courses, but also due to the river discharge from a large dam, which has accumulated nutrients during its filling. On the Portuguese side, the construction of a large-scale WWTP, designed to serve several urban areas, was successively delayed since it is located within a protected area. The main stakeholder concerns relate to asymmetric development strategies of the two countries and the impact of activities taking place in the watershed on the estuarine and coastal water quality, which has consequences on tourism attractiveness, fisheries, or traditional salt farming.

Example of Implementation:
In the Guadiana Estuary stakeholders forum the scenarios were presented with the use of the layout of the model. The objective was to illustrate the model capacities in terms of management options. These options reflect the major administrative roles of institutions in the estuarine system, namely: Águas do Algarve, ARH Algarve, EDIA, ARH Alentejo. The scenarios were limited only to WWTP efficiency changes. This choice takes into account the fact that river discharge does not have a significant impact on fecal coliforms output concentrations, as explained in earlier step of the implementation.

All scenario results were directly visualized through its specific outcomes, choosing not to make any model live runs during the forum. For comparison purposes, the three scenarios (Good, Fair, Poor WWTP efficiency) were organised in the same slides. Each scenario has a corresponding colour, facilitating the required comparison (Figue 1).


Figure 1: Screenshot images of scenario results. The plots use three colours to indentify the scenarios: Green»Good; Blue»Fair; Red»Poor. The Costs – Benefits – Revenues charts (bottom right) were displayed separately for each scenario.

Contact: Carlos Sousa, cssousa@ualg.pt.