Western Europe’s largest artificial lake was meant to save southern Portugal. It may be doing the opposite

Western Europe’s largest artificial lake was meant to save southern Portugal. It may be doing the opposite

The Alqueva dam is nearly 100 metres high, creating a reservoir that can hold 4,150 million cubic metres of water. Image: Paulo Resende/Shutterstock The Alqueva dam promised prosperity for Portugal’s parched south. Instead, it’s fuelling a corporate-driven monoculture that ecologists and farmers warn is destroying the land and the way of life that it sustained By Marta Vidal, photographs by André Paxiuta On a bright winter morning, Eva Barrocas …