WSEAS Transactions on Environment and Development
Print ISSN: 1790-5079, E-ISSN: 2224-3496
Volume 20, 2024
Restoring and Rehabilitating Watercourses in the Ria Formosa Nature Park (Algarve): Intervention Principles, Processes and Techniques
Authors: , ,
Abstract: The core objective of this article is to contribute towards defining a project methodology for rehabilitating fluvial ecosystems in strongly humanized Mediterranean landscapes. To achieve this objective, interrelated with the management and maintenance of these landscapes, we took into consideration the theory and the praxis that frame interventions in watercourses experiencing situations of risk. This article spans these two core, interwoven facets, approaching both the theoretical research and the applied research undertaken within the scope of proposals for rehabilitating five watercourses in Eastern Algarve. The project approach to the restoration of the ecological corridors associated with the downstream sections of the Cacela, Canada, Tronco, Bela-Mandil streams, and the Seco River thus accounted for the shortage and irregularity in the distribution of precipitation and the torrential regime characterizing the region in conjunction with the high level of artificialism displayed by these fluvial systems. Under the auspices of the project process, the aforementioned watercourses were perceived as dynamic, complex, open, and multi-functional socio-ecological systems with a role and importance in ensuring the biological balance and physical stability of the coastal plain and the Ria Formosa lagoon system. The project concept was rooted in a strategy based on intervention flexibility, taking into account a balance between the rehabilitation of natural values and resources and the presence of human activities. Hence, in the rehabilitation proposals developed, the materials applied were entirely natural (plants, wood, and stone), with recourse to technical-scientific concepts and procedures drawn from the fields of Landscape Architecture and Biophysical Engineering.
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Keywords: Algarve, Ria Formosa, Hydrographic Basin, Watercourses, Mediterranean Fluvial Systems, Rehabilitation Project
Pages: 844-851
DOI: 10.37394/232015.2024.20.79