Riba-roja and Paterna Town Halls receive 4.4 million euros from the EU for Project GUARDIAN to prevent fires in Turia Natural Park and La Vallesa

This initiative was presented in the ‘adaptation to climate change’ category of the Urban Innovative Actions awards along with 184 other applications from other member states

Operations are forecast to begin during the first half of 2019

This morning the resolution of the call for the Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) awards was announced in the Castell de Riba-roja, for which project GUARDIAN to improve the preparation and resilience of a wooded area of Turia Natural Park and La Vallesa, was presented. This project was one of those selected for this third edition and will therefore benefit from the European Union FEDER Fund for its implementation between 2019 and 2021.

On 30th March, a total of 184 applications were registered for the UIA initiative, including project GUARDIAN presented by the Town Halls of Riba-roja de Túria, the promoter of the initiative, and Paterna, along with Hidraqua and five other partners. The document sets out an innovative initiative to improve the preparation and resilience to forest fires of a wooded area shared between two towns within Turia Natural Park and La Vallesa through the re-use of residual water from a water treatment plant.

The event was attended by the mayor of Riba-roja, Robert Raga, the mayor of Paterna, Juan Antonio Sagrado, the manager of Hidraqua, Massimo Marras and the director of Turia Natural Park, Toni Ballester.

Also attending were various representatives from other companies and institutions that are taking part in this project, such as the Medi XXI consultancy, The Water Economy Group of Valencia University, the Water Engineering and Environment Institute of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Cetaqua, The Suez Spain Water Technology Centre and Turia Natural Park.

The mayor of Riba-Roja, Robert Raga, highlighted, in his speech, the importance of these funds to develop “a pioneering project due to its twin aspect of re-using residual water from the Camp de Túria II water treatment plant, for agricultural use and to prevent fires in the Natural Park, protecting the residential areas of Els Pous, Valencia La Vella and Masía de Traver”

In the same vein, the mayor of Paterna, Juan Antonio Sagredo, who emphasised that “this grant will make Turia Natural Park and the wooded area of La Vallesa natural areas that are 100% protected against fire, allowing these green lungs of the metropolitan area of Valencia to integrate more sustainably into the urban area of Paterna with better guarantees against the risk of fires”.

To select these projects, from 21 states, a rigorous selection process was conducted that started with the verification of the eligibility of the 184 applications presented, followed by a strategic assessment conducted by a panel of external experts during May and June. The pre-selected applications were passed on for operational assessment undertaken by the permanent secretary during the summer.

Hidraqua manager, Mássimo Marras, thanked the participating partners and the Universities for their participation and announced that, “the initiatives will begin at the start of 2019 and they are forecast to end in 2022. Moreover, it has a total cost of 5.5 million euros, 80% of which will be subsidised with FEDER Funds from the EU while the rest is financed by the town halls, companies and universities mentioned above”.

The initiatives to be implemented from now include:

• The elimination from the water treatment plant of an emerging microcontaminant (chlorpyrifos) that is not currently being eliminated.
• The execution of green barriers formed by species that are more resilient to fire that help to slow down the advance of a fire front, should the need arise.
• The execution of mechanisms that allow regulated irrigation based on the measurement of field data through a network of sensors so that only the amount of water that is strictly required to prevent uncontrolled vegetation growth is provided.
• The execution of forest monitoring work in the wooded area of La Vallesa.
• Refurbishment and improvement of the La Vallesa fire lookout tower

With respect to the application presentation process, the four categories to which the project could have been presented, were highlighted: adaptation to climate change, to which project GUARDIAN was presented, air quality, work and skills in the local economy, and housing.

Thus, cities from the south and east of Europe displayed a clear interest in working on solutions for improving air quality, and most of the proposals presented on this topic came from Italy, Greece and Romania.

On the other hand, adaptation to climate change seems to be a topic of overriding importance with most of the applications presented coming from Spain, Portugal and Sweden; reflecting their greater exposure to the anticipated effects of climate change.