Lisbon, Dec. 4, 2025 (Lusa) - The mayor of Lisbon described the Lisbon General Drainage Plan (PGDL) on Thursday as "Europe's largest climate adaptation project", noting that the city had been waiting for this project for 20 years.
Carlos Moedas was speaking to journalists after the ceremony marking the start of excavation work by the H2O tunnel boring machine on the second PGDL tunnel, which will connect Beato to Chelas and cover a distance of one kilometre.
"This is a very unique moment, because the city has been waiting for this project for 20 years. We started this work on 4 December 2023, in Campolide, with the first tunnel, which is almost five kilometres long and has already reached Santa Apolónia. And now the machine has left Santa Apolónia to build this new tunnel, which will be one kilometre long between Chelas and Beato [...]. It is the largest climate adaptation project in Europe," he stressed.
According to the Social Democrat, the "€150 million" project serves to protect "the people of Lisbon from flooding and everything that has been a constant source of suffering for this city for years".
The mayor also stressed the importance of the moment "to encourage" the men and women who work in very difficult conditions: they work three eight-hour shifts inside the machine, drilling very important tunnels for the city.
"They deserve our respect. I know that this work is invisible to the public eye, but it is the most important work in Lisbon in the last 100 years to protect the people of Lisbon, and so we are here to honour those who work every day," he said.
Regarding the completion deadlines, Carlos Moedas stated that, taking into account all the delays, "often typical in these works," this tunnel is expected to be ready by April.
According to the mayor, at the same time, the "delicate part of the work on the other tunnel, which is the passage very close to the Metro tunnel, will also take place in the first half of January".
"The two works will be carried out at around the same time," he said, noting that "by August or September" the "last connection, the last connection for rainwater to reach the river" will be completed.
The intervention, which does not interfere with the Lisbon Metro, will be done "more quickly" than the other, he said, stressing that if there are archaeological discoveries, as happened in the Santa Apolónia tunnel, work will have to stop.
"Every time there is a problem, there is a delay. All of this has been part of the life of a project like this," he explained.
The ceremony, at the Beato construction site, also included a mass in honour of Santa Bárbara, patron saint of miners, celebrated by the Patriarch of Lisbon, Rui Valério.
The first PGDL tunnel, connecting Campolide to Santa Apolónia, began construction in December 2023 and was completed on 22 July this year. Previously, already facing delays, the second tunnel was expected to be completed by the end of 2026.
The initial PGDL schedule estimated that it would be fully completed in February 2025.
With a total investment of around €250 million, the PGDL, first announced in 2006 but only moving forward in 2015, with Fernando Medina (PS) as mayor, is considered an important project to tackle flooding in the capital, but the major interventions, namely the construction of tunnels, only began in 2023 under the presidency of Carlos Moedas (PSD).
The project has an investment of €79 million for 2025.
The two tunnels will collect water from two high points (Monsanto and Chelas), as well as from additional collection points along their route - namely Avenida da Liberdade, Rua de Santa Marta and Avenida Almirante Reis - and carry the volume of water to the receiving body, the River Tagus (in Santa Apolónia and Beato), according to information on the PGDL website.
RCP/ADB // ADB.
Luas
