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An ancient drinking water supply system, called Sete Fontes (Seven Springs), was built in the mid eighteenth century in the city of Braga. The system is composed by underground galleries, cisterns, waterspouts, fountains, and (covered) stone aqueduct channels with about 3500m long. This national monument, still existing and active, preserves both the original memorial role (representative of a boost to urban and baroque architecture), and the original function(improvement of quality of life), being a witness of the evolution of hydraulic engineering concepts, which greatly contributed to the improvement of urban infrastructures and the protection of public health. This paper also presents an overview of the history of the water supply system of the city of Braga, from the Roman period to the contemporary age, with special focus on Sete Fontes water sources characterization (morphological, hydrogeological, hydraulic, and water quality). This heritage legacy is invaluable not only for its history and cultural significance, while maintaining its authenticity and integrity, but also due to its confirmed water quality that can be an added value, taking a new relevance to address future scarcity scenarios of safe water sources in a climate change context.

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An experimental study was developed in order to evaluate the efficiency in retention of heavy metal from highway runoff using for filter bed current construction materials with known proprieties, sand and kaolinite. The control parameters for the experiments were: pH, conductivity, temperature, Zn, Cu, Pb, flow, and hydraulic head.Preliminary results show that Zn is the most mobile metal with retention efficiency values decreasing to less than 50% in a 15-, 70-, and 110-day period, for the three different filter media. For Cu and Pb, and after a period of 260 days, the retention efficiencies obtained were above 70% and 40%, respectively, and above 90% in the sand and kaolinite media.

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