With the contribution of the LIFE financial instrument of the European Community LIFE20 ENV/ES/000327
From inside the Soto de Alfaro, or Soto de Tamarigal for the locals, in La Rioja, shows us the river branches, water paths that have been reopened and reconnected with the river in an intervention that sought to recover the functionality of this meander as its own space for the river and as a flood plain. At the same time, its vegetation, which makes up the forests typical of the banks of the Ebro, is exuberant.
In a visit on June 18, some of the people who have been present during the process to get this far went inside it. Riverside residents, users, stakeholders, technicians, who are part of the co-creation groups, the epicenter of the participation of the LIFE Ebro Resilience P1 Project for zone 1, the one that integrates the stretch of actions between Alfaro (La Rioja) and Castejón (Navarra).
A follow-up visit to check how the intervention area has been renaturalized, to understand on the ground what was explained in visits before the start and in plans during the definition of the works.
Participation and the dissemination of information on the commitment to nature-based solutions have played a major role, and knowing the results helps to understand the effect of the interventions in other areas.
What did the intervention consist of?
The LIFE Ebro Resilience P1 Project concluded in January the planting in the meander of the Soto de Alfaro, thus closing the works for the recovery of the meander’s functionality, reopening the old river branches.
This is an example of the application of nature-based solutions to reduce the risk of flooding. The connection with the river is restored and, therefore, the irrigation of the undergrowth in order to reduce the impact of the Ebro floods, by adding the meander as a fluvial space.
The recovered branches, in an area of 60 hectares, now act as irrigation channels for the undergrowth, allowing the flows of the Ebro to enter the undergrowth with floods of 800 m3/s and not with the 1,200 m3/s that were necessary before, making the positive effect of the fluvial and flood plain space more effective and reducing the narrowing and erosion effects in the section.
The planting was carried out with a coppice arrangement, which imitates the natural way the forest evolves, and the reopening work was carried out taking into account the environmental conditions:
- Between May and June 2024, the first works were carried out in the meander lands allowed by environmental regulations, which were not expected to affect the breeding season of species, which did not have tree vegetation of interest and which were formerly occupied by an aggregates operation.
- The second phase was undertaken from autumn onwards, outside the breeding periods of the species present in the riparian forests preserved in the meander.