Sofia Henales |
Madrid (EFE).- Rivers in urban areas are, “without a doubt”, more affected than those in rural areas, especially downstream from the city, and even “sometimes they are smelly sewers”, according to several complaints to EFE. experts dedicated to the conservation of these ecosystems, “so damaged by human action”.
Since 1997, the International Day of Action for Rivers is commemorated every March 14, with the intention of protecting these sources of fresh water and the biodiversity that lives inside them, a purpose shared by the Oxygen Foundation, as detailed by its director, Roberto Lozano.
This non-profit organization has ‘CSI Ríos, Ciudadan@s Socialmente Implicad@s’, a campaign “for conservation and environmental education to raise awareness about the importance of caring for this ecosystem and its problems”.
The project began more than twenty years ago and “now we find more waste, more garbage and more debris in our rivers”, so much so that some, “especially the lower reaches of urban areas” have become “smelly sewers”.
This urbanization and discharges -from mining and fecal and industrial waters- have caused “45% of the rivers” to be deteriorated, although unlike the lower ones, “the upper reaches are usually quite well preserved” and this means that “the from rural environments are better cared for”.
A technique for cleaning rivers is wastewater treatment, which, in Lozano’s opinion, “in Spain leaves much to be desired”, at a general level, and, furthermore, “it is not being fulfilled in some localities”.
The problem also worries the coordinator of the water area of Ecologistas en Acción, Santiago Martín, who has said that from his organization “we want to return a certain degree of naturalness to the rivers”, given the channeling of many of them between concrete walls.
Martín agreed with the director of Fundación Oxígeno that the channel “already has a significant level of degradation” when it crosses the city, since in addition to the spillage and the concrete, “it affects them not having a riparian forest, but it seems that they are He has accepted the situation.”
In fact, “the wastewater of 9 million people in our country is still discharged without any type of purification and for this reason the European Union already has five files open.”
The infrastructures “that can affect a river the most” are reservoirs because they prevent the natural flow and in Spain “there are more than 1,250”, being the EU country with the largest number and the fifth in the world, which “completely alters the natural environment”.
This problem affects the fauna and flora, “there are species, such as the sturgeon, that have been extinct forever due to these constructions”, for this reason “we must guarantee the conservation of the river as much as possible”.
The association, AEMS-Ríos con Vida, was born in 1979 with that intention, as well as to “recover river ecosystems and native fish”, according to its general secretary, César Rodríguez.
In Rodríguez’s opinion, “we are using too much chemicals and making intensive use of water with livestock and agriculture”, an activity that consumes “around 80% of hydrological resources” to produce fodder or irrigate fruit trees.
A renaturation of the rivers “is possible”, for example “eliminating the ruins that we have thrown at them” or “installing treatment plants”, although “there must be a commitment from society and the administrations. And we have to be more responsible.”
As for the urban ones, he stressed that “things can be done differently”, such as the Manzanares, “an open-air sewer” that, when the gates are lowered and allowed to circulate, has formed islets, the vegetation has settled and there are waterfowl.