Green Infrastructure and Biodiversity Plan - Madrid

The Green Infrastructure and Biodiversity Plan for the city of Madrid (Spain) is a set of documents outlining strategies, guidelines and overall planning proposals and actions for the city's green areas. The 2015 Plan sets the basis for strategic planning for green infrastructure, connectivity between green areas located inside and outside of the city, and climate change mitigation through vegetation selection and management. The Plan also envisions favouring water retention and biological improvement of the soil through the implementation of sustainable urban drainage techniques. In all its stages, the Plan takes social equity, participation and co-responsibility, transparency, and effectiveness and efficiency into account. The Green Infrastructure and Biodiversity Plan proposes to carry out more than 180 concrete actions for the city. As the implementation only started in 2020, no major outcomes could be identified yet.

Overview

Type of instrument:

Legislative, regulatory and strategic instruments›Dedicated strategy, plan, or law

Challenges addressed

Ecologic connectivity
Soil quality
Water management (e.g. reuse)
Green space management (e.g. accessibility)
Heat stress and heat island effect
Social equity
Reconnection to the biosphere / environmental education

Consideration of nature-based solutions:

The active management of biodiversity shall form a substantial part of the Plan. The Plan seeks to increase the number and variety of plants, animals and soil organisms living in the city, and further includes the creation of green corridors, maintenance and increase of green areas, re-naturalisation of degraded areas, and improvement of the water management. On buildings, the Plan intents to increase the area of green on rooftops, facades, terraces, patios, and other spaces. Many activities are specified in separate plans, also on district level (such as the Road Tree Plan derived for each district).

Targeted (peri-)urban areas:

Parks and (semi)natural urban green areas

Allotments, community gardens or agricultural areas

Green areas for water management

Derelict areas

External building greens

Urban green space connected to grey infrastructure

Good practice characteristics:

Effective

Sustainable in the long-term

Locally appropriate

Potential to be replicated / upscaled

Inclusivity

Governance

Government body/bodies

Initiating body:

Madrid Dirección General de Gestión del Agua y Zonas Verdes (General Directorate of Water Management and Green Zones)

Instrument design:

Details about how the instrument was designed:

The development of the Plan has been a highly participatory process, involving: municipal technicians and gardeners, districts, neighbourhood associations, researchers, trade unions, companies, independent consultants, social groups. The planning has also taken into account the feedback received during the public information period (including a questionnaire, 21 participatory workshops, and other activities) that took place during August and September 2018. The Plan was approved by the Governing Board of the City of Madrid on 13 December 2018.

Involvement of non-governmental actors:

Private sector, corporate, business

Researchers, university

Citizens or community groups / NGOs

Type of actor involvement:

Civil society consultation through e.g. workshops, surveys

Instrument implementation:

Type of involvement:

One of the main field of actions of the Plan is to promote citizen participation and involvement in its implementation. This includes many different activities, such as participatory spaces (both face-to-face and online) to integrate citizens' concerns, interests and motivations into decision-making, citizen science initiatives to monitor and conserve biodiversity, public-private collaboration with associations or companies, agreements with social and/or environmental organisations, environmental roundtables, amongst other initiatives.

Type of non-governmental actors involved:

Implementation of NBS (e.g. with government funds)

Citizen science

Targeted actors:

Public sector institution (e.g. school or hospital)

Private: household, real estate developer, business , financial

Citizens or community groups (CBOs), NGOs

Financing

Budget:

500 000 € - 1 000 000€

Details about instrument financing:

The budget is not structured in a closed and rigid way, due to its temporal scope and to the fact that many of the proposed actions are management and action-focused and must be implemented by the City Council and the citizens. According to the plan, only an initial estimate of the cost of the actions to be undertaken in the short-term has been made. This estimate was calculated to be €624,422.

Monitoring, evaluation and impacts

Is a monitoring framework in place?:

Yes

The Plan includes the establishment of mechanisms for monitoring the strategic objectives, lines of action and actions, as well as the evaluation of their implementation. A series of quantitative and qualitative indicators are outlined to objectively measure these results. The Plan's monitoring and control system is managed by the Directorate General for Water and the Environment. The main sources of information are obtained through the MiNT computer platform. The Plan aims to create a Plan Monitoring Team, which will be responsible for the implementation of the Plan and its monitoring, establishing the necessary improvements. A number of milestones are also defined. A Balanced Scorecard will be used as a useful management tool to measure the evolution of the strategic objectives and the results of the actions with a global perspective in the medium and long term. Monitoring indicators provide regular information for a better medium and long term follow-up. The types of indicators proposed for the appropriate monitoring of the Plan are: impact indicators (reference indicators for green areas and trees), process indicators (associated with the fulfilment of milestones), economic indicators (associated with the investments made), satisfaction indicators (associated with citizen and municipal opinion).

Did an evaluation take place?:

Yes

On the basis of the monitoring reports, tools and indicators established, the implementation of the Plan, as well as the Plan itself, will be evaluated and improved accordingly.

Achieved outcomes and impacts:

While the Plan was published in 2018, the first two years were primarily dedicated to derive concrete plans of action and to conduct additional analyses and data collection activities. As the implementation of the plan only started in 2020, no major outcomes could be identified to date.

Success factors and lessons learned:

The development of this Plan inherently includes biodiversity in the strategic planning of green infrastructure - which is not common practice in the design of green infrastructure plans. It has also taken into account sustainability and connectivity as well as climate change. One other aspect for success relates to the inherent consideration of the city's citizens. This not only includes their involvement in the design and implementation itself, but also targeted communication efforts and open interactions (such as events in parks and other interactive activities) and the integration of aspects relating to justice and equity.

Sources and further information

References

List of references:

CityPopulation (2023): Madrid. https://www.citypopulation.de/en/spain/madrid/madrid/28079__madrid/ (Accessed: 30 January 2023).

City of Madrid (2018): BASES Y DIRECTRICES GENERALES DEL PLAN DE INFRAESTRUCTURA VERDE Y BIODIVERSIDAD DE LA CIUDAD DE MADRID.

City of Madrid (2018): Plan de Infraestructura verde y biodiversidad. Resumen ejecutivo. Madrid.

Portal de transparencia (2023): Plan de Infraestructura Verde y Biodiversidad de la Ciudad de Madrid. 2018-2030. https://transparencia.madrid.es/portales/transparencia/es/Organizacion/Planes-y-memorias/Planes/Plan-de-Infraestructura-Verde-y-Biodiversidad-de-la-Ciudad-de-Madrid/?vgnextfmt=default&vgnextoid=0464b2c3180d7610VgnVCM1000001d4a900aRCRD&vgnextchannel=d869508929a56510VgnVCM1000008a4a900aRCRD (Accessed: 30 January 2023).

Photos

@ Carabo, Pixabay