Avila

THINGS WE SHOULD DO TO KEEP THE ENVIRONMENT
CLEAN:

Stop buiding near the river
We should not allow any activity which has to be carried out next to
the bed of the river or that damages the nature because we cannot allow
the pollution of the little water we have.
Before closing a mine or a quarry we have to refill the land we had
dug and we also have to plant again all plants there were before the
extraction not to put an end to the environment.
We must not build a mine next to the bed of the river because it is
an very aggressive activity for the river, since it pollutes the water, and
for the environment; besides it is something we are doing that it is not a
process of the nature, we are changing it against the course of the nature
and where we do it, it is not going to be good.
We have to protect the landscape and we should avoid the visual
impact from paths, roads, cities... therefore we should not accumulate
soil above a determinate height.
The noise should not be more than 55db in the zone we are
working because we can get deaf (if we usually work there) and the
animals which live there can be scared.
We also should protect the animals which live in that zone because
we are taking their “homes” away
We have to eliminate all industrial waste to protect the environment
because it can cause the pollution of the water, the death of some living
beings and so on.
It is a serious environmental problem to dig under 1.5m if there is a
river underground because whatever is on the land is filtered. When it
rains these residues end up in the river.

Ban illegal dumps
To cut a long story short, we should be careful with everything that
surrounds us if we want to enjoy it in the future.
Cristina Rodríguez Seco.

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Gravel mining is a contradictory reality. We know the necessity of the commodity for the construction.
But when this activity is made illegally, without environmental controls, impacts can affect the balance and the natural values of the large territory.
The exploitation always causes an important alteration in the landscape and above the natural resources of the area (soil, water, vegetation…)

CONSEQUENCES:
1- About the water:
Spills of mud to the river.
The gravel mining pours to river clays, sands and chippings. The consequences of pouring tons of diary mud is the invisibility of bed bottom. And if there aren’t floods the bottom compacts itself and the animals die.
It is an illegal phenomenon but this is practised by a lot of people. Sometimes the spills of mud have rests of the mortar, when the installation goes together with the fabrication of concrete.
Evaporation of aquifers:
The exploitation under water table level exposes the aquifers forming small lakes that the people leave without protection during a lot of years. This causes the evaporation of water. It causes lot of problems because of the deficits of water.
Pollution of aquifers:
When the extraction is left we can see the small lake with varied spills coming from industrial state, these companies use the small lakes as spaces to pour the rubble and provoke the impoverish of subsoil.

2- About soil and vegetation
Destruction of vegetation
All the mining exploitations need of the previous destruction of the vegetation of surface. This cleaning-up supposes the elimination of big areas of trees in the last year.
Loss of the organic soil
The people sell the first layers of soil (the most fertile) to build and provoke a damage in the quality of soils.

3- Problems of personal safety
Fall and loosening
Some exploitations don’t have fences and it supposes a danger for poachers and other people that live nearby.
Dangerous traffic.
The lorries that circulate on the road without protection of freight and loosening of material have caused some serious accidents and windscreens breaks.

Other problems are: dust and noise, visual impact and destructions of paleontological and arqueological rest.

Mª Ángeles Gómez Gómez
Alba Mª Jiménez Jiménez
Mª del Carmen Sánchez Vazquez

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Pollution in the Adaja
Pollution is produced by three types of spills:
1Polluting tolerated spills, like cesspits and the spills of polluted water
sewers. These sewers don’t purify water before spilling itto the rivers.
2.Illegal spills, like sub housing, industries and constructions located out of
town-planning arrangement, because they lack sewers and connexions with
the drainage network.
3. Polluting controlled spills. Among these ones we can find:
-Urban residues: they mainly come from the water in the sewer system,
domestic rubbish, and the empty bottles that especially young people leave by
the river sides.
- Agricultural residues : agricultural residues are organic and biodegradable
compounds, and in the main they can be immediately used. Those compounds
don’t produce a lot of contamination, because, to do it, it is necessary to
accumulate lots of them in little time.
-Industrial residues, which are the most varied and each one creates
specific problems. However, we can say that industrial residues don’t suppose
a menace in Ávila, because we hardly have factories.
We can also say that the concentration of population in our town and villages
contributes to a quick pollution in the water. The main polluters are:
-Pathogen agents : bacterias, virus, “protozoos “and parasites that flow into
the water coming from organic residues.
-Residues which require oxygen: these residues can be decomposed by
bacterias which take oxygen to biodegrade them. It is necessary to control
this type of residues, because the number of bacterias could grow, taking all
the oxygen from the water , and so, killing all the aquatic living beings.
-Chemical inorganic substances : acids and toxic metal compounds
(mercury, lead) that poison the water.
-The vegetal nutrients , which can cause the excessive growth of aquatic
plants, and when these plants die, they need a lot of oxygen for their
decomposition, which could affect the aquatic life.
-Chemical organic substances: oil, plastics, pesticides and detergents
menace the living beings.
-Sediments or materials in suspension: insoluble particles of ground that
disturb the water.
-The heat: the arrival of hot water decreases the contents of oxygen and
make the aquatic organisms very vulnerable.

Violeta Zazo, Leire Díaz, Joanna Martín, Sandra Martín

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INVADING SPECIES
They are species that are not native from the place in which they live.
Animals and plants that come from a foreign place and adapt in our
enviroment remaining here.
The causes of the introduction of these species can be involuntary. The
impact caused with the introduction of these species constitutes together with the
destruction of habitat,the principal reason for the disappearance of species.These
have different characteristics concerning mobility, bredding and sexuality.
The introduction of species can have an impact in the comunity of destiny because
of predatory habits, habitat alteration, illnessor parasite introduction and finally
because of the loss of biodiversited due to the hybrid species.
In the 20s a fish from the USA (gambusia) was brought. It was very
voracious for the larvae of the mosquito that caused the malaria.
In the 50s the pike ,so called “shark of sweet water”, appeared in our rivers. It
has teeth on the tongue, he can measure 1.5m and weigh 20kg. They brought the
pike to promote fishing sports.
Half the invading species that threaten the ecological balance are fish.
Other examples are: the black bass, the “percasol”,the “siluro”(river fish)
In the 80s the American crab (cambarus affinis say) that eliminated the
autochthonous crab (potamovius astacus). It has remained in high and low
parts of the rivers bringing a kind of fungus.
The autochthonous crab was a gastronomic and cultural resource that
generated substantial economic benefits.
In the whole thre are 26 invading species (fish) introduced in Spain.
IN AVILA
The vegetation of the Amblés Valley has been modified by diferent habitants.
The flat lands were covered by groves of evergreen but at present the
agrarian landscape predominates. Before, the inhabitants planted hedges,
and they went on changing the landscape. Together with the riversides, in
the high course there are willows, ash-trees and in the middle course the
"bardaguera" (wicker)grows.
The invading animals are the pike and the American crabs.

Soraya Jiménez & Carlos Casillas

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RIVERSIDE DESTRUCTION
There are many buildings near the river Adaja so the vegetation in the riverside
is disappearing .
The speed of the building is increasing so there is now less vegetation.
The buildings in Avila are above all in the south zone because Avila is getting
bigger and bigger.
The law says that the buildings have to be 50 metres away from the river, to
protective the vegetation.
Another problem of the riverside destruction is for example “botellón”.
The “botellón” is when young people buy alcohol in a supermarket and then
they go near the river Adaja and drink there.
When they have finished they drop the bottles, glass, shopping bags, trolley...
and they don ́t pick up the rubbish. This rubbish sometimes fall into the river
and it pollutes the riverside.
The policemen try to change this situation.
The reservoir “Fuentes Claras” has a reef. This is a problem because this
destroys the vegetation near the river and pollutes the landscape.
There is a lot of agriculture. Sometimes farmers use many pesticides.
They can arrive to the river and pollute it, and this pollution in the river
affects the vegetation by the riverside.
For example, in the” Valle Amblés”, the cultivation of strawberry throws
pesticides that pollute the water.
The river Chico, which it is an affluent of the river Adaja, is canalized.
Cement has been put in the bottom and in the laterals of the basing of the
river. This improves the cleanliness of the river, avoids bad smells, permits to
construct walks along the river and the water is cleaner.
But on the other hand, the construction of the canal has inconvenients:
1. It destroys the flora in the river: trees, bushes, aquatic plants and lichen
disappear from the bottom of the river
2. The fauna that was living and feeding on these plants, ( fish, insects, and
amphibians...) disappear because the food chain breaks and the ecosystem is
destroyed.
3. It modifies the landscape. The nature changes by the cement. The riverside
is uglier iby the river Chico.
Other cause of the destruction of the riverside is that the people throw rubble,
waste and rubbish into the river.

Miguel Á́ngel Bermúdez Arias
Violeta De La Fuente Lujan
César Sánchez Jiménez
Blanca Sánchez Rotger

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POLLUTION

green Points in the province of Avila
Nowadays Avila is synonym of activity, movement, hustle. In our town we go shopping, we go to work and go to the doctor, but everything by car. The result is an environment problem that has grown like cities have grown too.
The new technologies and today’s consumne models have generated a considerable increase of production of waste and the appearance of new materials in the trash such as residual aluminium, tetrabriks, poliespan, plastics etc. Everything will get to a deposit of rejections after a treatment. This way of collecting waste permits to share the responsability to get a better environment, creating the means and taking part in our selective waste activity.

"The city and the waste"
The environmental urban conditions are important for our health and our quality of life. In most the countries, the cities generate many economic activities, they consume the greatest part of natural resources and they produce pollution and rubbish.
Cities have the comforts and the illusion to catch up with them? to attract the population. The cities offer big possibilities of leisure and consume, sanitary? special attention, ample educational and cultural offer, work, economic opportunities and many services .Avila is a province with few inhabitants(165,138) only Arenas de san Pedro, Arevalo and Candeleda surpass the 5000 inhabitants, and they concentrate the 40% of the population of the province. When examing a city and ranking it with a natural ecosystem, we observe a series of similarities:
-the city needs energy
-consumes natural resources, it lives on water, raw materials and food.
-processes the natural resources turning them into elaborated products.
-The city has also a biotope or environment conditions of temperature, light, constructions, etc. That is a characteristic artificial environment. The most important difference with an ecosystem is that in nature, they recycle the ecosystem elements passing from some beings into other ones through the alimentary chain and in town it doesn't happen. It's a system that needs to stock up constantly. Whatever it generates remains . These remains are called air pollution or water pollution. According to leavings, different consumer demands a direct relation with the quantity of leavings generated. As a general rule, developed countries produce bigger quantities of trash than the developing countries. There are differences among the quantity of leavings generated al the rural zones and the generated at the cities and, in the same, way among neighbours with high standard of living and more humble neighbours. The river in Avila is very polluted because people throw bottles and all of old things. This river hasn't water.

Green Point
"What can we do?"
The ecological footprint is an innovative concept that measures the incidence of our step on the planet calculating the quantity of nature that we consume. It's defined like the earthen surface that we need a year to obtain natural resources and to asssimilate the leavings that we produce. In Spain calculation places us in 3'8 ha per capita, how ever our country only can give each Spaniard 1'4 ha. We are consuming more resources of ones that include from 2000 to 2010 and they design plans like the one belonging to Residues Urbanos and Envases of Castilla y León in 2002. This strategy and the Plan embraces 3 beginnings than all of people must put in practice to get a sustainable development. Strategy comes from the 3 "rs":
-Reducing: There isn't residue better than the one that we don't produce because we consume products that leave few leavings or because the manufacture themselves with a little packing or because the composition of the product generates minimal leavings.
-Reuse: It consists on using again an object or container.
-Recycling: Going back to the leavings like raw material to utilize the materials that get fixed.

"All type of Leavings"
Strategy Regional has classified them like this:
-cattle leavings
-agricultural and forestall leavings
-leavings of the construction and demolition
-pneumatic tires
-contaminated grounds
-electric teams leavings and little electrons

"Our bag of leavings"
People in Avila produce each one 1'3 kg a day. Avila generated in 2002, almost 25,000 tons of urban leavings. A one trash can have into, the following elements:
-organic elements
-paper
-plastic
-glass
-metals

"Avila prepared to try to obtain his residues"
-Green Point (in the Hervencias Industy State)
-Centre of Treatment of Inert Leavings ( in the Alamedilla del Berrocal)
-Deposit of inert substances (in the Alamedilla del Berrocal)
-Centre of Treatment of Urban Leavings (in Urraca Miguel)

CRISTINA GARCIA BLAZQUEZ
MARTA LOZANO MARTIN

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What is this?

River-Bed Drain is the action or effect of drying up or extracting the humidity.
Reasons
The climate
The human action
The ground
The environmental impact
The forest fires
The climate

The Adaja River receives several tributaries, but this doesn’t solve the drought. Although they come from the hills they don't collect water in abundance due to the scanty rains, and this produces a big irregularity.

The human action

During the last years, Avila city council has been carrying out a project about putting human supervision to guarantee the recovery and restoration of the source and riversides of the river, degraded by the humans . But this project will influence the river source because it is going to modify the natural landscape.

The soil

It is firstly, dry and sandy.
The soil is dry so, it isn’t waterproof. When it rains, the water penetrates through the pores of the terrain and the rocks making aquifers, and for this, the source of the river doesn’t increase. River-bed drain fissures are formed because of the quality of the terrain.

The environmental impact

River bed drain causes serious damage to the river ecosystem: loss of the riverside forest, riverbed’s narrowing, mortality of fishes and other species, etc.
River bed drain affects too every spot in the lower part of the river, causing sanitary risks because there isn't enough water for the waste spills, either legal or illegal, to be dissolved.

Laura Martín, Diana Fernández, Paula Rodríguez and José Luis López

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Publicity campaigns are often designed to change people's attitudes. This picture shows the visual elements in the recent campaign to make us aware of the importance of protecting environment.
Look for more information about it and post your comments about the meaning of the drawings. Use modal verbs and conditional sentences to express your opinions.

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