Almada's water crisis is now entering its third week. SMAS Almada, the municipal water utility, is continuing nightly total cuts on a rotating schedule, a different group of zones loses water each night from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. cycling through roughly three groups over a three-day rotation. The most recent round, on the night of 15-16 July, hit Pragal, Almada city centre, Cacilhas, Ramalha, Cova da Piedade and Centro Sul; the published schedule has the rotation continuing through at least 17 July, and the crisis has already run longer than officials initially signalled when it began. SMAS says water service is restored gradually after each overnight cut, meaning some streets regain pressure sooner than others.
The nightly cuts are only the most visible part of a broader crisis that started at the beginning of July and has only intensified since.
How this started
On 2 July, SMAS Almada issued a first, mild warning: residents should moderate garden watering and avoid non-essential use. Demand continued to rise. By 3 July, taps had already run dry in several localities, and SMAS said publicly that demand had outstripped what its wells could pull from the ground, the start of a rotating, zone-by-zone rationing system. The areas hit hardest from the outset were Costa da Caparica, Sobreda and Capuchos.
The response escalated quickly after that. A public petition passed 1,500 signatures within a day and kept climbing. The water regulator, ERSAR, formally requested an explanation from SMAS. On 6 July, the utility activated a full contingency plan and established a crisis coordination office. On 7 July, the Costa da Caparica health centre was forced to close for lack of water.
On 8 July, roughly 1,500 people marched through the coastal area demanding the resignation of Almada's mayor, Inês de Medeiros, chanting "Inês para a rua, Almada não é tua." Members of Livre and Bloco de Esquerda joined the protest, and Livre has since requested parliamentary hearings for the mayor, the head of SMAS, and ERSAR.
Medeiros declared a formal "situação de alerta", the most serious response tier the municipality has available, that same day, 8 July. Nightly total cuts, rotating through three groups of zones on a roughly three-day cycle, began two days later and are still running now, over a week on.
What's actually causing it
Municipal officials attribute the shortages to unusually high summer demand: 2026 has brought the highest volume of water distributed in more than 75 years of public supply in Almada. Average consumption across the concelho now tops 300 litres per person per day, according to SMAS, against a national average of 180.
That figure climbed a further 4.3% through June alone, with the sharpest increases in Charneca de Caparica, Sobreda/Lazarim and the coastal area. Officials describe the shortages as the result of an extreme heatwave coinciding with the start of the summer beach season, when the area's population rises sharply and water demand exceeds what the groundwater system can comfortably supply.
ERSAR has raised another issue. The regulator says the consumption spike in some areas doesn't fully match billing records, and is separately investigating possible illegal connections or unmetered usage. That inquiry is ongoing and unconfirmed, it could explain part of the discrepancy, or it may not move the overall picture much. SMAS has not identified illegal connections as the primary cause of the shortages.
- A new borehole, GW1, came online 12 July, generator-powered, originally scheduled for late July but moved up once the alert was declared, adding roughly 20% more capture capacity.
- A second borehole is expected by the end of July; the SMAS/Câmara Municipal notice for the 15 July cut references two boreholes already adding a combined 120 cubic metres of water an hour to the network.
- Three more boreholes are in licensing, and three further are still at the project stage.
- All non-domestic, non-essential uses of the public water supply remain banned for as long as the alert status stays in force.
The cost beyond the inconvenience
This hasn't just been a matter of showering at odd hours. Restaurants and cafés in Costa da Caparica, whose economy leans heavily on summer tourism, have been forced to close mid-shift or turn away basic service, coffee, meals, when water pressure drops too low to meet food-safety and hygiene requirements. The health centre closure on 7 July put the crisis in unambiguous public-health terms, even briefly. Some residents have reported stretches of roughly 24 hours without any water at all.
The crisis has also become a political one. Opposition parties have demanded parliamentary hearings, residents have protested in the streets, and Mayor Inês de Medeiros is facing organised calls to resign.
What you can do
Costa da Caparica and the wider Almada coastline are firmly on the radar for foreign residents and visitors around Lisbon, it's one of the closest major beach destinations to the capital, a short ferry ride from Cacilhas. If you're staying anywhere in the rotating cut zones through at least 17 July, plan around a 10 p.m.-6 a.m. outage on your scheduled night, keep some water stored in advance, and check SMAS Almada's and the Câmara Municipal de Almada's Facebook pages directly for the current schedule, since the zone groupings shift every few days and the crisis has already run longer than initially expected. The notices have been published in Portuguese, English, French and Italian, reflecting the area's large international resident and visitor population. SMAS has published the rotation through 17 July, but officials have not said when the overnight cuts will end altogether.