The Official Gazette of La Rioja (BOR) has published (April 11), the Resolution of the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural World and Environment by which aid is called for actions to adapt to the risk of flooding of buildings, facilities and farms in the Rioja municipalities of the middle section of the Ebro river basin, within the Ebro Resilience Strategy and within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan financed with Next Generation funds.
This is the second call for subsidies aimed at minimizing the effects of water floods on the safety of people, property and economic activities, and will have a significant economic allocation of 1,015,244 euros.
The adaptation measures respond to four lines of action: the acquisition and installation of equipment or materials that prevent the entry of water or facilitate its evacuation; the execution of works for environmental recovery and improvement of the condition of watercourses and riverbanks; actions carried out in agricultural and livestock farms; and interventions considered necessary for the protection, environmental improvement and adaptation to flood risk of river environments, as well as buildings, facilities, infrastructures or equipment.
The territorial scope of this aid is limited to the 18 riparian municipalities of theEbro axis and the Cidacos and Alhama rivers in La Rioja, which are part of the Ebro Resilience Strategy: Logroño, Agoncillo, Arrúbal, Alcanadre, Pradejón, Calahorra, Aldeanueva de Ebro, Rincón de Soto, Alfaro, Enciso, Arnedillo, Santa Eulalia Bajera, Herce, Arnedo, Quel, Autol, Aguilar del Río Alhama and Cervera del Río Alhama.
The objective of this call for aid is not to promote isolated measures that benefit certain sectors or individuals, but rather to respond to a strategy that must be coordinated and directed by the competent administrations, in such a way as to enable and consolidate the necessary mechanisms to incorporate adaptation to flood risk as part of the ordinary activity of the different economic sectors and, in general, of the life of the citizens.
The recipients of these grants are individuals or legal entities, homeowners’ associations, city councils, consortiums formed by local entities and any public sector entity, as well as private non-profit organizations. The call establishes that they must submit only one application per action in each of the lines, although they may apply for several of them.
As a novelty with respect to the first call, both entities and individuals or legal entities will be beneficiaries of these subsidies in all the lines, and the amount of the subsidy to carry out all the adaptation measures will be increased, reaching 80% of the financeable budget, with maximum grants of between 35,000 and 120,000 euros, depending on the line to which they are submitted.
On the other hand, the deadline for the execution of the actions and the investment justification is extended to February 6, 2026. In addition, the actions may have been carried out prior to the approval of the investment, provided that they have not started before March 6, 2021.
Applications can be submitted during the next two months through the virtual office on the website of the Government of La Rioja: https://www.larioja.org/medio-ambiente/es/agua/estrategia-ebro-resilience.
The Ebro Resilience Strategy establishes a framework for collaboration between the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITERD), the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation and the governments of La Rioja, Navarre and Aragon, as well as other stakeholders, to work in solidarity and coordination in flood risk management in the middle stretch of the Ebro, forming a subprogram of the Flood Risk Management Plan (PGRI) of the Ebro Hydrographic Demarcation.