Madrid

Photo by Fermín Rodríguez Fajardo

Renaturalization of the Toledo Bridge in the Manzanares River – 2016/2018

The gates of the existing dams on the 8 km urban stretch of the Manzanares River have been opened, allowing the water to flow freely and thus favouring the natural processes of sedimentation and spontaneous development of marsh and riverbank vegetation. The new habitat that has emerged has allowed an increase in biodiversity and recover the functionality of the river as a green connector.

It has also been possible to support the natural recovery process of the river: by removing the upper part of one of the existing breakwaters, providing high-performance solutions topsoil, covering the rest of the slope and planting more than 15,000 trees, shrubs and cuttings of riverbank species: ashes, white poplars, alders, hawthorns, elderberries, roses wild, tarays, willows and elms of a resistant variety to graphiosis.

Nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation

In 2016, within the framework of the local strategy for adaptation to the effects of Climate Change, Madrid + Natural was presented as an initiative aimed at promoting actions implementing nature-based solutions in three areas or scales of intervention: building, neighbourhood and city. Three years later, many of the actions already present visible realities.

The transformative experiences shown have a common objective: to integrate nature into the city as a mechanism to mitigate the impacts derived from changes in the climate (increased intensity and duration of heat waves; greater intensity of drought periods, or more frequent episodes of extreme torrential rainfall).

Madrid + Natural is a transversal proposal that is fed by the joint action of various municipal areas, but also by actions developed by citizen groups and companies, contributing to increasing the resilience of the city of Madrid in the face of Climate Change.

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