Ecologistas en Acción has promoted more than 20 projects for the renaturalization of urban stretches of rivers
- The environmental organization presents its proposal in Bilbao to renaturalize the final stretch of the Nervión River.
- This plan adds to the numerous projects that Ecologistas en Acción has promoted in recent years to recover the environmental and social values of urban rivers.
Ecologistas en Acción has so far carried out 22 projects in 14 autonomous communities, from the Palmas-Ajui river in Fuerteventura to the Isuela river in Huesca, to renaturalize urban stretches of rivers. Some of these projects are already underway, such as the Manzanares River in the city of Madrid and the Oro River in Melilla. In others, their renaturalization will begin this year and next, such as the Piles River in Gijón, the Castaños River in Barakaldo, the Manzanares River in Getafe, the Turia River in Valencia and the Francolí River in Tarragona.
Local groups and the Ecologists in Action Water Area have carried out intense work to reverse as much as possible the multitude of alterations that urban rivers have suffered, whether due to strong urban expansion, the absence of adequate purification or for the construction of large transportation infrastructures. All of this caused the natural spaces they comprised to suffer great deterioration: they are no longer ecological corridors, they barely have biodiversity, they cannot carry out natural water purification and they are no longer spaces for citizens to rest and enjoy.
The objective of all these projects and the impetus for them to be carried out is to recover the environmental values of urban rivers, so that they can once again be great containers and transporters of biodiversity, corridors of life between the upper and lower parts of the river. The ecosystem functions of rivers also favor natural water purification, pest control, flood lamination and climate regulation. From a social point of view, in addition to generating large natural spaces in the middle of the concrete and asphalt of the cities that the population can enjoy, they are also very useful for education, science, recreational activities, the recovery of the cultural heritage of the cities.
The naturalization and recovery of river spaces in cities is presented as an example to be taken into account by local and hydrographic authorities, in which the environmental, social and landscape aspects are combined.
