Citizens move to adapt the Tordera and Serpis river basins to the impacts of global change

A new project to adapt the River Tordera (Catalonia) and the River Serpis (Valencia) to the effects of climate change has begun. This will involve the participation of citizens and stakeholders in these basins. This will be done by giving a boost to two existing governance spaces: the Taula de la Tordera and the Serpis Platform.

The REDAPTA project is an initiative coordinated by CREAF with the support of the Biodiversity Foundation, which aims to give a boost to two existing governance spaces in the Tordera (Catalonia) and the Serpis river (Valencia): the Delta and Lower Tordera Taula and the Serpis Platform. These two spaces bring together actors of the territory, people from different backgrounds, with various interests or concerns that interact with each other for a common interest: to make decisions and define measures that allow the adaptation of the sensitive stretches of these Mediterranean rivers to climate change.

The new project is based on the results of the ISACC TorDelta project, which also received support from the Biodiversity Foundation in the 2016 call for proposals. In this new season, the aim is to develop a new participatory process in parallel in both basins. The participatory process will aim to co-design concrete adaptation measures that are framed in a strategic and integrated planning of each basin. In addition, it will be a process that will monitor participatory restoration measures that are being carried out in each basin. In the case of the river Serpis it will be an action to improve the river in Potries beach and in the case of the Tordera the restoration of the shooting range in Malgrat de Mar.

"We are working so that the voice of the Delta and Lower Tordera Round Table can contribute to the new hydrological planning of the Tordera basin" by Annelies Broekman, project coordinator at CREAF.

An Iberian network of innovation spaces in water governance

In addition, REDAPTA aims to create a network for the exchange of knowledge based on experience. It will bring together the different citizens' roundtables that exist on the Iberian Peninsula and that work on the adaptation and management of water in different territories. The purpose of this network will be to generate information on innovative practices in governance. It will also make it possible to jointly analyse the experiences gathered, promote the creation of reference models, mutual training and the possibility of promoting adaptation to the impacts of global change by reducing social conflict.

At the project's inaugural event, the Catalan Water Agency's Citizen Participation Office was represented to explore synergies and opportunities. "We are working so that the voice of the Delta and Lower Tordera Round Table can contribute to the new hydrological planning of the Tordera basin," says Annelies Broekman, project coordinator at CREAF.

To contact the technical secretariat of the project, please write to:

a.broekman@creaf.uab.cat

plataforma.serpis@gmail.com