Line of action:

Urban environments

Status:

En ejecución

Location:

Madrid (Community of Madrid)

Execution date:

2022

Duration:

16/09/2022 - 30/12/2025

Total budget:

€2,753,657.94

Amount of aid from the Biodiversity Foundation:

€2,615,975.04

Coordinating entity:

Madrid City Council

Sanitation, railway and road infrastructures have altered the topography of the valley and encased the riverbed, hindering the ecological function by interrupting the gallery forest. Of all the infrastructures that affect this section of the Manzanares River, the ones that most damage its ecosystem are the spillways of the sanitation systems. Currently, storm tanks, treatment plants and collectors and drains channelled under the mobility infrastructures drain into the river through concrete lips. These hard drains, built in concrete and sometimes reinforced with breakwaters, although they solve their purpose, cause considerable environmental damage by interrupting the ecological corridor linked to the river, both in terms of the gallery forest and the valuable and delicate banks. They are producing erosive processes at the bottom of the riverbed and on the slopes near these points, disturbing aquatic habitats and causing discontinuities and ecosystem interferences along the Manzanares riverbed.

The Manzanares River is the main ecological corridor of the city of Madrid. Subjected to anthropic interventions related to urban growth, since 2005 there have been actions to recover its fluvial dynamics. Currently, the final section, in the districts of Villaverde and Vallecas, remains one of the spaces most altered by sanitation infrastructures: three treatment plants, three storm tanks, 16 collector drains and spillways. REF MANZANARES-GAVIA-BULERA develops an infrastructure integration strategy compatible with the recovery of the ecosystem connectivity of the river and its tributaries. The project is integrated into the Metropolitan Forest and will allow the recovery of the flood zone, the use of reclaimed water from the WWTPs in landscape restoration, the integration of hydraulic infrastructures eliminating barriers and the recovery of riparian habitat.

Some of the actions that are contemplated are:

• Preparation and processing of the strategy.
• Ecological characterization study.
• Hydraulic study.
• Design of spillway and drainage actions.
• Action guide in spillways. Good practices.
• Environmental restoration.