The Ebro Resilience Strategy and its actions to reduce the risk of flooding through adaptation measures and nature-based solutions in the middle stretch of the Ebro, is in luck as it has won the LUZ VERDE award , in its category WATER, an initiative of Onda Cero and WWF that lives this 2025 its first edition. It has done so ex aequo with the project Oceánicas Red de Vigilantes Marinos, to whom we would like to congratulate, as well as the rest of the colleagues recognized in the categories Land and Air, which you can learn about here. here.
Ebro Resilience has been recognized, in addition to the actions that are already demonstrating their benefits in the event of floods, for the firm commitment to coordination and collaboration between the competent administrations in the event of floods in the Ebro.
Together in the Ebro Resilience Strategy and together in the LIFE Ebro Resilience P1 project, a project co-financed by the European Commission and which is included among the actions of the middle section, are the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), through the company TRAGSA and its subsidiary TRAGSATEC; the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation; the Government of La Rioja; the Government of Navarre, through Gestión Ambiental de Navarra, S.A. (GAN-NIK) and the Government of Aragon and the Aragonese Water Institute.
The strategy partners also work continuously with local administrations, which are crucial for the implementation of flood adaptation interventions, and in parallel, with the riparian population, through a real and effective public participation process to define solutions.
These awards have chosen among 119 nominations the three projects that, related to water, land and air, best represent actions towards sustainability and the environment and represent a fight against climate change.
In the case of Ebro Resilience, it has been highlighted:
- The new approach to flood risk management using nature-based measures and natural water retention, making it possible to reconcile human activities and the recovery of river ecosystems in the face of extreme flooding.
- The application of measures that reduce the cost of conservation and the need for human participation, by ensuring that the river’s own natural dynamics maintain the interventions.
- Coordination of all those involved in the flooding phenomenon in the middle reach.
- The commitment to public participation and social capacity building, promoting knowledge and self-protection measures among the riverside population.
Awarding of the prize
The awards ceremony, at which the winners were announced, was held on Wednesday, May 21, at the Botanical Garden in Madrid. And betting once again on cooperation, part of the technical team formed by all the Administrations took the stage to collect the award: Tatiana Garza, from Confederación Hidrográfica del Ebro; María José Clavijo, representing the Government of La Rioja; Eva Zaragüeta, from GAN-NIK and representing the Government of Navarra; Ana Montero, from Instituto Aragonés del Agua and the Government of Aragón and Eduardo Murillo, coordinator of the LIFE Ebro Resilience P1 Project on behalf of the TRAGSA Group (public companies TRAGSA and TRAGSATEC).
“We are many people working to adapt to the risk of flooding in the middle stretch of the Ebro River, to improve its ecological state and its habitats, involving and integrating the population in the design of actions so that human and economic activities along the river coexist,” said Garza in his speech of gratitude on behalf of all those who form the Strategy.
And he stressed that “thehe Administrations represented here are water managers, we are river managers, we are life managers. We thank the institutional collaboration at all levels that supports us and the local riverside population of La Rioja, Navarra and Aragón for their essential participation in carrying out the Ebro Resilience actions. “.
And finally, acknowledging that“this award motivates us to continue working on the Strategy, in a coordinated manner and in a spirit of trust”.
Public administrations
The technical team was accompanied by an important institutional representation, with the Director General of Water of MITECO, Mª Dolores Pascual; the Minister of Rural Development and Environment of the Government of Navarra, José María Ayerdi; the Director General of Natural Environment and Landscape of the Government of La Rioja, Ignacio Sáenz de Urturi; the Director of the Aragonese Water Institute of the Government of Aragon, Luís Estaún and the President of the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation, Carlos Arrazola.
The jury of the award was composed of renowned personalities from the environmental and communication fields. With LUZ VERDE, Onda Cero and the NGO WWF want to reinforce the commitment to the planet, ecosystems, biodiversity and the fight against climate change.
Award-winning performances
The LUZ VERDE Agua award focuses on initiatives, actions and projects whose impact is linked to the conservation of oceans, seas and rivers and the sustainability of the wildlife that inhabits them.
The Ebro Resilience Strategy presented to this award the most advanced actions in the middle stretch, those included in the confluence of the Ebro and Aragón rivers, in Alfaro (La Rioja) and Milagro and Castejón (Navarra), where the Ebro floods reach great magnitude and cause significant damage.
To reverse this situation, seven interventions were designed for the morphological adaptation and environmental restoration of the Ebro river, which add their benefits in the so-called combined actions section: those executed in the sites of El Ortigoso (phase 1), in Milagro; La Nava, El Estajao, El Soto de Alfaro and La Roza, in Alfaro, and those planned for phase 2 of El Ortigoso and the meander of El Señorío, in Castejón.
These interventions, which started in 2019, have involved:
- 113 hectares of recovered fluvial space, integrated into the Natura 2000 Network
- the creation of two wetlands
- the relocation of Alfaro’s supply wells to a more secure position.
- the planting of 70,000 native vegetation specimens
- the construction of an 800-meter flood channel
- the recovery of 3 km of lost arms of the river
Ebro Resilience
Although these were the actions presented, the recognition was intended to mention all the interventions defined in the Ebro Resilience Strategy, which aims to reduce flood damage under current climatic conditions in the middle stretch of the Ebro, from Logroño (La Rioja) to La Zaida, in Zaragoza, covering the territory of the Autonomous Communities of La Rioja, Navarra and Aragón. In short, the interventions seek to ensure that economic activities and population centers coexist with a river Ebro in a good state of conservation.
To this end, the strategy was born as a framework for collaboration between the different Administrations, as well as other actors, to work in solidarity and coordination in flood risk management, applying the measures of the Flood Risk Management Plan of the Ebro Demarcation.
Floods are the phenomenon that causes the greatest damage in Spain and Europe (70% of the compensations made by the Insurance Compensation Consortium between 1990 and 2022) and the middle stretch of the Ebro is an area of high recurrence.
LIFE Ebro Resilience P1
Three of these interventions of the Ebro Resilience Strategy presented to the award were selected by the LIFE program as a demonstrative action on the benefits of nature-based solutions, being integrated in the LIFE Ebro Resilience P1 project. Specifically, the morphological adaptation of the meander of La Roza, the intervention in the Soto de Alfaro (both in La Rioja) and the morphological adaptation of the meander of El Señorío, in Navarra.
The LIFE Ebro Resilience P1 project, approved by the European Commission in the LIFE 2020 call, covers the three autonomous communities (La Rioja, Navarra and Aragón), has a duration of 6 years and a total budget of 13,310,350 €, with a 55% contribution from the European Union’s LIFE financial instrument.
Under the umbrella of the Ebro Resilience Strategy, the project includes two different intervention proposals.
- Section between Alfaro (La Rioja) and Castejón (Navarra): this is considered the demonstration part of the project, with works for the recovery of the fluvial space through the elimination and relocation of dikes, and the environmental restoration of three meanders.
- Osera de Ebro – Fuentes de Ebro (Zaragoza) section: a novel intervention is proposed to make an intensively cultivated agricultural area compatible with the passage of floods. For this purpose, buffer zones have been defined for lateral flows that compartmentalize agricultural farms in areas that will be pre-flooded during flood episodes, generating water buffers that will minimize damage to farms and infrastructures.
This project is also an example of institutional coordination and cooperation in the intervention section, its partners being the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO), through the company TRAGSA and its subsidiary TRAGSATEC; the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation; the Government of La Rioja; the Government of Navarra, through Gestión Ambiental de Navarra, S.A. (GAN-NIK) and the Government of Aragón and the Aragonese Water Institute.