Route 2: Reservatório dos Congregados and Centro de Gestão Integrada

21/05/2025

The second itinerary of the “Roteiros com ImPacto” allowed participants to visit two key infrastructures for Porto’s urban and water resilience: the Congregados Reservoir, a historic element in water management, and the Integrated Management Centre, a multidisciplinary platform for real-time monitoring and response.

This session highlighted the importance of systems operating behind the scenes of the city, ensuring sustainability, efficiency, and the capacity to adapt to both climate and operational challenges.

In one of the highest points of the city lies a well-kept secret: the Congregados Reservoir. It was there, at the top of Rua da Alegria, that the second route of the “Roteiros com ImPacto” began. With roots dating back to the 19th century, the reservoir is a central element in supplying water to the upper areas of the city, thanks to its strategic location—one of Porto’s highest points, marked by a geodetic landmark.

Amidst concrete and history, the reservoir’s evolution mirrored that of the city, transitioning from underground tanks to the current infrastructure of circular cells. It was in the 21st century, with the Porto Gravítico project, that the system was modernised to operate using gravity, eliminating the need for pumping stations and significantly reducing energy consumption. Today, Porto’s water flows almost silently underground, with sustainability becoming a driving force behind the city’s water efficiency.

The route then moved towards urban management. The Integrated Management Centre (CGI), located at the Fire Brigade Headquarters on Rua da Constituição, revealed another dimension of sustainability—coordinated response capacity. The CGI comprises a crisis room and an operations room, where entities such as the Municipal Police, PSP, Metro do Porto, STCP, and Civil Protection come together to monitor the city 24 hours a day.

The City Council’s Vice-President, Filipe Araújo, highlighted the evolution from “a mobility centre to a multidisciplinary, vital, and unique centre in the country,” which ensures a swift and coordinated response to extreme or high-impact events, such as the recent blackout or the management of major city festivals.

Equipped with cutting-edge technology such as videowalls, drones, sensors, weather systems, and digital platforms, the CGI is now Porto’s digital brain. The visit underscored the importance of such systems in helping the city adapt to extreme events resulting from climate change, being crucial to contain and mitigate damage as well as to safeguard people and property.