Avila

RIVERSIDE DESTRUCTION AND OCUPATION
INTRODUCTION:
The occupation of the Public Domain Hydraulic and zones of river flooding has accelerated in the last years especially for the agriculture extension, the housing scheme or for the building of houses and kitchen gardens next to the river.
The project of regional administration for the rehabilitation of the riverbed, by building breakwaters, has proved they are very efficient to protect the farming plot, but has become an authentic channel.
There are some extraordinary cases that alter the riverside
In some riversides people throw waste and the riverside gets polluted.
We have found the following problems by the Adaja:
a) Cultivation and farming.
Forest, hedges and grasslands are the quintessence of the riverbank or “ribera”.
The dynamic of the river has carved out a series of niches characterised by their wide heterogeneity and dynamism. Forests, hedges and grassland make up the essence of the damp riversides. From the earliest times, these ecosystems , with their depth and quality of soils as well as the hydrological regime of the basin, have been used by man to plant irrigated crops, eventually modifying the course of the river. The quality of the riverside environment is in a serious condition and demands the habitats found there to be evaluated, with the need for measures of protection to be taken to avoid their destruction.
A place in a riverside has demanded a struggle against an abundant vegetation in the forests and groves.
The result of this intense relation of the men with the riverside gets a rich cultivation where we can find forests like poplar groves, poplar, willow, buushes and other kind of vegetation in montainous areas in Ávila near the river Adaja .
The ground of the riversides is very rich, deep and with much humidity, that is why our city can have riversides for the characteristics in the ground. But the use of the agriculture, the pollution with urban waste are damaging the riversides serrrrrriously. The current vegetation in the riversides is in a terrible state and in our city we have these problems too. so the area of the riverside is dropping everyday.
b) Residential areas:
Now we’re building more than years before and this has severe consequences. For the river, the main affected, the builders take away terrain from the river, make the river not to follow its course, and if the river gets more water, it could cause more disasters for the houses and for the environment. Every time the natural spaces are smaller than other years causing environmental destruction.
For the owners it is more complicated because they lose their houses and money. We have to care for the environment because is more important for the future.
c) Low quality housing:
By the Adaja we don’t have to many low quality housing, but there are some. As for the houses there are very near to the river, there are some houses who are smash, but the other houses are new. As the houses who are smash, their materials go to the Adaja riverside, and the riverside suffers destruction and occupation with these materials, for example bricks, stones… Now many constructions don’t build near the riversides because are very polluting . Also now the Adaja riverside is cleaner than years before.
d) Breakwaters
Although the Adaja does not have much water, some of the areas have breakwaters to avoid flooding or to make dams. In a certain way, this is another aggression because the river is altered.
Sara López, Diana Rios, Cristina Sáez & Sandra Velayos