This plantation improves the quality of the water and generates more shade to cool the fluvial temperature and promotes a suitable habitat for those recovering species of fish, birds, and amphibians. With this intervention, urban microclimates are regulated and climate shelters are generated, which contribute to improving the lives of citizens.
On the other hand, two light structures are built, configured with corrugated profiles supported on pre-existing elements such as sewer pipes or retaining walls, which allow an approach to the water while improving safety against falls. At the same time, the new biodiversity viewpoints act as landscape elements that will be extended to other points of the Rec Comtal route.
Environmental restoration of the Rec Comtal area by Carles Enrich. Photograph by Adrià Goula.
Project description by Carles Enrich
Rec Comtal has been one of the most important hydraulic infrastructures in Barcelona that supplied water and irrigated the Besos agricultural territory from the 10th century to the middle of the 20th century.
Being an open-air ditch, during its active period, it meant a catalyst for public space and the social life of citizens and an exploitation of agriculture and industry. Therefore, it is an essential element to understand the economic and social development of the last thousand years in Barcelona.
Nowadays, almost all Rec Comtal has disappeared due to urban growth in the last century and the archaeological remains are abandoned. The only section that maintains running water is located in the Vallbona neighborhood, although it only accounts for 5% of the total 14.56 km of the Rec.
As the first pilot intervention within the framework of the Master Plan for the recovery of the Rec Comtal, an intervention of renaturation and environmental restoration of its surroundings is carried out in two points of the Vallbona neighborhood. Both presented a degradation and an abandonment process turning the Rec Comtal into a residual space in danger of disappearing. To value this historical element and recover the condition of green infrastructure, a plantation of riverside vegetation and macrophyte species is proposed. This improves the quality of the water (Fraxinus Angustifolia, Salix atrocinerea, Vinca difformis, Vitex agnus-castus, Iris pseudacorus, Carex pendula, Scirpus holoschoenus, Juncus acutus...), generates more shade to cool the river temperature and promotes a suitable habitat. for those new species of fish, birds, and amphibians that recover.
Environmental restoration of the Rec Comtal area by Carles Enrich. Photograph by Adrià Goula.
The recovery of biodiversity requires the planting of plant species that attract their associated fauna and guarantee the biological cycles of growth, dispersion, and recycling of these biomes, trying to make them as autonomous as possible.
The proposed interventions serve to improve the quality of surface water and aquifers, reduce the negative effects of rainfall, increase drainage and soil quality, regulate urban microclimates and generate climatic shelters, improve local ecosystems, and many more actions. management that can contribute to improving the lives of citizens. This renaturation generates a green corridor along the Rec Comtal.
On the other hand, two light structures are built, configured with corrugated profiles supported on pre-existing elements such as sewer pipes or retaining walls, which allow an approach to the water while improving safety against falls. At the same time, the new biodiversity viewpoints act as landscape elements that will be extended to other points of the Rec Comtal route.
