On June 19, the LIFE Ebro Resilience P1 project held a technical workshop in Pamplona titled “The Ebro Resilience Strategy in the Agricultural Sector and Flood Management in Navarre,” a meeting organized by Orekan-Gestión Ambiental de Navarra and the Ebro River Basin Authority (CHE), with the aim of familiarizing decision-makers and technical staff involved in agricultural planning, irrigation, and infrastructure with the challenges and practical implications of this flood risk adaptation strategy.
The event, held at the headquarters of INTIA (Navarre Institute of Agri-Food Technologies and Infrastructure) thanks to the collaboration of this public entity of the Government of Navarre, brought together staff from the Irrigation Planning Department and the Technical Office for Monitoring Farm Operations (OTSE), the Irrigation Engineering Division of Navarre, the Agricultural Infrastructure Service of the Government of Navarre, and representatives from the agricultural administration of La Rioja.
The Ebro Resilience Strategy is an administrative coordination framework involving the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), the CHE, and the regional governments of La Rioja, Navarre, and Aragon. The goal is to adapt the middle section of the Ebro River to mitigate flooding and reduce the damage caused by high water, while also improving the river’s ecological status.
In contrast to approaches focused exclusively on flood protection, the strategy proposes reducing the vulnerability of human activities and planning land use while taking into account the flood-prone nature of the floodplain. This approach directly affects the agricultural sector, one of the main users of these areas.
Content and Speakers
Redesigning the agricultural landscape to coexist with the Ebro River. That was one of the main ideas discussed at the conference: the need to incorporate flood risk into agricultural planning, viewing floods as an inherent feature of the territory rather than as an anomaly against which one can only defend oneself.
For this reason, the need to design agricultural modernization along the Ebro River corridor while taking this risk into account was addressed. In a context marked by climate change and an increase in extreme weather events, adapting agricultural land is essential for improving safety, reducing damage, and moving toward more resilient and sustainable production systems.
During the event, participants discussed both the fundamentals of the Strategy and its practical implications for agricultural planning, the modernization of irrigation systems, and infrastructure development in flood-prone areas. In addition, the regulatory constraints arising from European, national, and regional legislation were analyzed, as well as real-world experiences carried out within the scope of Ebro Resilience’s activities.
The sessions were led by David Gargantilla, technical coordinator of the LIFE Ebro Resilience P1 Project, and Tatiana Garza, both from the Ebro River Basin Authority; Arantxa Ursua, head of the Water Quality and Hydraulic Works Section of the Directorate General for the Environment of the Government of Navarre; and Eva Zaragüeta and Luis Sanz, from Orekan-Environmental Management of Navarre.
The LIFE Ebro Resilience P1 Project is led by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), through the Ebro River Basin Authority (CHE) and the public companies TRAGSA and TRAGSATEC; the governments of La Rioja, Navarre—through Orekan–Gestión Ambiental de Navarra—and Aragon, together with the Aragonese Water Institute, with support from the European Union’s LIFE financial instrument.