{"id":479707,"date":"2026-03-17T03:42:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T03:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479707\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T03:42:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T03:42:21","slug":"portugal-addresses-illegal-water-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479707\/","title":{"rendered":"Portugal addresses illegal water use"},"content":{"rendered":"

AAA<\/a> is responsible for managing the intermunicipal water supply and sanitation system serving 10 municipalities in the Portalegre district: Alter do Ch\u00e3o, Arronches, Castelo de Vide, Crato, Fronteira, Gavi\u00e3o, Marv\u00e3o, Nisa, Ponte de Sor and Sousel.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the intermunicipal company indicated that it has set as its objective “combating illegal uses” of the public water supply network, with “zero illegal use” as a priority of its actions.<\/p>\n

Recalling that it is responsible for water supply and sanitation in \u201ctwo-thirds\u201d of the municipalities in Alto Alentejo, the company stated that it has already invested \u201c9.6 million euros\u201d in the renovation and creation of infrastructure, as well as in the acquisition of equipment and technology using artificial intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n

Quoted in the statement, AAA’s CEO, Rui Cho\u00e7as, explained that one of the main challenges for this year \u201cis reducing non-revenue water,\u201d that is, the difference between the volume of water entering the distribution system and the volume actually billed to consumers.<\/p>\n

He also stressed that this situation also results from \u201cclandestine connections to the public network and manipulations aimed at artificially reducing recorded consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n

AAA revealed that last year it \u201celiminated 106 illegal situations and replaced 30,000 meters.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the company noted that since the beginning of its operations, indicators of non-revenue water \u201chave shown positive progress,\u201d highlighting a \u201csignificant decrease of 12%.\u201d<\/p>\n

This progress has resulted in a reduction in water purchases from \u00c1guas do Vale do Tejo by 400,000 cubic metres (m3),\u201d equivalent to \u201c280 million five-litre bottles.\u201d<\/p>\n

With an intermediate target of a \u201c20%\u201d reduction in non-revenue water by 2030, AAA said it expects to invest \u201csix million euros\u201d in a water-efficiency project to leverage this indicator.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, according to the company, the \u201cambition is clear\u201d and involves \u201ccompletely eradicating illegal practices in the network, achieving the goal of zero illegal activity, through the application of current regulations to offenders.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2025, the company indicated that \u201c5,125 maintenance works\u201d were carried out, of which \u201c3,347 were in the water supply network and 1,868 in the sewage network.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince October 2024, in addition to actively searching for leaks, replacing metres, and detecting illegal activities, the company has updated the water network registry over approximately 500 kilometers (practically the distance between Porto and Faro) and repaired 680 leaks through active searching, that is, leaks that are not visible on the surface,\u201d AAA also noted in the statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AAA is responsible for managing the intermunicipal water supply and sanitation system serving 10 municipalities in the Portalegre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-479707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}