What is Reservoir

The most important tourism projects since 2005 in Portugal, privately owned and with European funds, were integrated resorts, mostly located in public water reservoirs, as a result of urban policies to encourage the human occupation of the most interior desertified areas. The Alqueva reservoir, although with no visible results, is an emerging paradigm of urban expansion planned for tourism in these areas. This chapter intends to show the importance of the tourism reservoirs, lost with the economic recession, through an analysis of its territorial management tools and a re-focus on innovative urban regeneration and expansion models, using water as a central element of its development.