Line of action:

Urban environments

Status:

En ejecución

Location:

Tarragona (Catalonia)

Geographic scope:

España

Execution date:

2022

End date:

2025

Duration:

04/07/2022 - 31/12/2025

Total budget:

€3,604,816.11

Amount of aid from the Biodiversity Foundation:

€3,322,862.71

The municipality of Tarragona, with a surface area of more than 62.5 km2, is located in a very diverse coastal territory, and marked by its geographical structure, with a coastline of more than 6.5 km, two alluvial valleys (Gaià and Francolí rivers) and agricultural areas of orchards and forest areas on calcareous hills. The level of urbanisation in the municipality is very high (over 30%) and the fragmentation is enormous, given that the municipality has numerous nuclei and neighbourhoods detached from the urban fabric and, in addition, large industrial facilities (port, petrochemical estates) and commercial-logistical facilities. On the other hand, Tarragona is located in the passage of the Mediterranean communication infrastructure corridor and also opens its doors to the interior of the peninsula (Ebro valley). The result is a matrix of disconnected interstitial open spaces between residential, industrial, commercial and communication infrastructures, which are highly susceptible to the effect of phenomena linked to the climate crisis (forest fires, damage to the coastline by storms, serious risks of flooding in its river network). In addition, the set of these spaces has a high pressure and load of public use. In the past, Tarragona City Council has developed a Master Plan for Green Areas and an urban figure called the “Green Belt” mapped in the Municipal Urban Development Plan, which incorporates most of these spaces, but there is no strategic, planned and coordinated action on them in fields such as ecological restoration, the fight against invasive alien species, the promotion of biodiversity and adaptation to climate change. The Project will make it possible to solve these shortcomings and begin to act in some of the locations that accumulate the greatest environmental problems or in which nature-based solutions can obtain better results.

GreenBelt’26 is a transformative project that is based on an overall vision of Tarragona’s green infrastructure, focused on the ecological and landscape value of its biophysical environment, which identifies the most vulnerable spaces and with the greatest potential for renaturation, always with ecosystem criteria. It also takes into account the resilience of the municipality’s ecosystems in the face of the effects of climate change: storms on the coastline, flooding around urban rivers, fires in surrounding forest areas, etc.

• River restoration of the urban sections of the Riu Clar and the Francolí river, and of the lagoon of the Anella Verda Mediterranea park as a contribution to the blue infrastructure.
• Renaturation of the urban waterfront: demolition of the Miracle Beach Platform for its subsequent renaturation, integration of the Mas Rosselló Park into the coastal system and dune restoration on the beaches of Arrabassada and Larga.
• Restoration of forest areas to improve their resilience in Pont del Diable and other areas of the Anella Verda.
• Increase in tree cover in Parc Francolí for its promotion as a climate refuge.