A playful day, in contact with the territory and, in addition, with learning. This was the experience of the guided tour to the meander of Aguilar, in Fuentes de Ebro, which brought together fuentanas and neighbors from other nearby towns of the bank organized by the LIFE Ebro Resilience P1 project on April 28.
On a fully spring day, and accompanied by good temperature, the 5 kilometers course had an important affluence. Everyone was able to learn about the proposals of the project to adapt to the floods in the Osera de Ebro – Fuentes de Ebro section; to approach the lines maintained by Ebro Resilience for public participation and, in addition, to appreciate and learn about the flora and fauna of the Ebro’s copses.
During the morning, in addition to walking and discussing together about flood phenomena and the measures and tools to reduce their effects, the participants enjoyed a game about the river and land management.
The City Council of Fuentes de Ebro collaborated very actively with the Project to promote this route, which is intended to be the first of many other actions to be in contact with the beneficiary localities.
LIFE Ebro Resilience has in place in this area of action of Osera-Fuentes, stable participation groups in which stakeholders are involved from the beginning. In addition, the interventions in this case have been shared throughout its definition with the Community of Irrigators of the Huerta del Ebro.
LIFE Ebro Resilience
This project has European funding and brings together public administrations to reduce the effects of flood risk in the middle stretch (Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge; Ebro Hydrographic Confederation; Government of Aragon and the Aragonese Water Institute).
In this section of Osera de Ebro – Fuentes de Ebro, the first phase of a new pipeline of the irrigation system of the Irrigation Community has already been completed.
The intervention is being carried out by the Department of Agriculture, Livestock and Food of the Government of Aragon through the public company TRAGSA and the objective is to move the pre-existing irrigation network away from the defense dike. In its initial position, there were affectations and cuts in the supply when there were breaks in the mote. In addition, it has been decided to change from an open-air trench to a buried concrete pipe in its main network.
Osera- Fuentes Section
In addition to the work already started, further interventions are planned to reduce flood damage. In the first phase, the narrowing will be reduced and river space will be recovered by recessing two sections of the defense dike, moving them away from the channel in the meander of Aguilar and the mejana del Conde. This project has already passed the public information phase and will be executed by another of the partners, the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation (CHE) with a budget of 2.9 million euros.
The expansion of the river area will be completed with the environmental restoration of the land recovered for the riverbed, through the planting of riparian vegetation, which will be carried out by the Government of Aragon.
In the second phase, currently at an advanced drafting stage, one of the most innovative interventions of the LIFE proposal is proposed: the creation of so-called buffer zones for lateral flows.
These buffer zones will compartmentalize agricultural estates in areas that will be pre-flooded in a controlled manner during flood episodes, generating water buffers that will minimize damage to farms and infrastructure when there is a generalized overflow, taking into account the processes already underway to modernize the irrigation of the entire orchard, by the Irrigation Community of the Huerta del Ebro, and the associated land consolidation action by the Government of Aragon.