The “Ave for All” project proposes a multidisciplinary and dynamic approach to enhance citizen involvement in the water resources management. The ecological quality and biodiversity of the Ave River were monitored, and restoration measures were promoted. Additionally, more than 120 theoretical and practical environmental education actions were carried out to empower target groups with tools to track freshwater quality, debate opinions, and standardize procedures among parish councils
Local
Portugal
Guimarães Municipality
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Landscape Laboratory (Municipality of Guimarães) Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Carlos Last name of representative: Ribeiro Gender: Male Nationality: Portugal Function: Executive Director of the Landscape Laboratory Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rua da Ponte Romana Town: Guimarães Postal code: 4835-095 Creixomil Country: Portugal Direct Tel:+351 253 421 218 E-mail:geral@labpaisagem.pt Website:http://www.labpaisagem.pt
The “Ave for All” project proposes a multidisciplinary and dynamic approach to enhance citizen involvement in the water resources management. It was conducted in Ave River (Northwest region of Portugal). The target groups were the inhabitants of Guimarães’ parish councils that the Ave River crosses, particularly students, green volunteers of each parish and parish council presidents.
For a year, the ecological quality and biodiversity of the Ave River were monitored, and restoration measures were promoted. Additionally, more than 120 theoretical and practical environmental education actions were carried out to empower target groups with tools to track freshwater quality, debate opinions, and standardize procedures among parish councils (e.g., clean-up and rehabilitation actions). Actions also included discussions with citizens, researchers, local authorities, and governmental entities about the citizens’ concerns and the proposal of measures that reconnect citizens with local rivers.
Water Sources
River Monitoring
Biodiversity
Environment
Environmental Education
The "Ave for All" project aimed to promote the education and action of the community with practical terrain interventions, to identify functions, threats and constraints of Ave river banks, but also raise awareness and capacitate the participants through practical and theoretical sessions. All of the sessions where made with digital presentations at the Landscape Laboratory or at schools, except the practical sessions, where we used monitoring sheets, to monitor a stretch of the river with the participants. These monitoring sheets where available to all the participants digitally, to make it more sustainable, but the main goal was to transform those sheets to a phone app, available in a free way for everyone that was to use it and help us revitalize Ave river. All of the data that those sheets or app provide are saved in our data base so we can understand the full state of the river and ask the proper authorities to act in accordance to the different threats that appear in the river. This project also brought back an old profession, called river rangers, that was extinct in the past, but Guimarães Municipality and the community thought that it was still a useful job to protect our water lines, and they have the help of groups of voluntary people called green brigades that act to protect and preserve the environment in each of Guimarães Parishes.
One of the "Ave for All" key objectives was to promote an environmental, social, cultural and identity bond between the public and the river, aiming to make them act in its protection and revitalization. All the sessions had a theoretical part and a playful one, to make participants learn while they play and enjoy the learning experience. Apart from that, the participants were able to expose their thoughts about the strong and weak points of the river, and also propose solutions and strategies to fight these weaknesses. The project ended with a field trip with all the participants to a stretch of the river that was near them (schools or inside the parishes) for them to learn how to monitor the river quality, and assume the responsibility of taking care of that part of the river.
This was an exemplary project by involving not only the local community, the parish councils but also some sensitive groups (like children, youngsters and elders) that were extremally committed to protect and preserve this natural heritage of our municipality. Everyone belonging to the community that lives near the Ave river were integrated in this project, and there were no costs associated to any parish council, or school, giving no reasons for them to refuse collaborating. In this aspect this is one of the few education projects that allowed the students to develop strategies that were listened to by the local government and applied when it was possible.
All the participants learned about the issues that the rivers of Guimarães were facing, and tried to act against this problems by devising some strategies and solutions. Also they assume the responsibility of monitoring the river on their own parish and cleaning it when it would be necessary. A lot of the participants showed some changes in their behaviours and habits, that where sometimes hurtful to the rivers, but they didn´t paid attention to that. This change in the mentality is extremely important for the project because it allowed us to create a volunteer "force" that could help us spread the awareness to the rest of the citizens and at the same time act as a protecting brigade that monitors and protects the water lines of Guimarães, the surrounding habitats and its biodiversity.
The design of this project was all made by the Landscape Laboratory, but it had different stakeholders in the implementation of the initiative. First we had the Portuguese Environmental Agency (APA) that taught the participants about the issues of the rivers at a national level, and then more specifically about the major river in Guimarães, Ave River. The next issue to discuss in the project was the treatment of water, for our consumption and also our sewage, so for that 2 different companies were introduced to the project, Vimágua (our local water supplier, it treats the water from the river to be distributed in the public water lines) and Águas do Norte (our local sewage treatment company). They taught the participants about all the issues that show up in the sewage treatment facilities and the difficulty they have to treat a lot of the waters that arrive from our sewage system, and how that those mistakes we make sometimes end up entering the rivers. Landscape Laboratory taught the participants about our river's biodiversity and different habitats that it provides. And Floradata taught all the participants what are invasive species, what are the invasive species that exist locally and how to control them. To note that at schools, all this sessions were done by technicians of Landscape Laboratory after learning from all the partners of this project.
This project reflected in different knowledge fields, because we can't try to solve an environmental issue without understanding better all the disciplines that surround it. The more important one was the ecology and biology surrounding the problem, meaning the river, its habitats and biodiversity. Other disciplines addressed were water resources, garbage treatment (sewage), geography cause they learned where the river spring was situated and where it would drain into the sea. All the representatives of this different knowledge fields interacted with each other to share the different knowledge they possessed about to theme to create a single voice of the project, where all the integrates could have the same level of knowledge to share it with the participants in a more understandable way.
This initiative was innovative in very different ways, firstly it involved not only the experts of the areas surrounding the issue, but all the community through all the different ages and occupations, to create a knowledge equal population in our municipality, cause sometimes the information does not reaches all the population. This way we made sure that everyone could learn and act as individuals. Besides that instead of asking for the local government to devise some strategies and solutions for the issues presented in this project, we asked the local community, specially schools to give us their strategies and solutions, because sometimes the people that live, work or study near the river, can think of better ways to prevent and solve all the problems that are affecting our river. We also took the participants to the terrain so they could witness the strength and weaknesses of the river in their parish, so that they could become aware of it and act as a guardian of the river. This project also developed a cell phone app so that all of the Guimarães municipality population can serve as an agent of monitorization, and facilitates this possibility by allowing people to monitor through their cell phone while having a walk near the river, a simple and fun way of helping the environment.
This project can be replicated anywhere that has issues with water sources, because of its simplicity but effectiveness. For that reason we publicised a book of the project showing all of the methodologies and steps that we implemented throughout the project so that other municipalities, cities or even countries could replicate it. Everything we used from methodology, to technology or products used in this project, all the learnings are described in this book, making it easy for other places to replicate, according to their own location, issues and community. Even if we are not talking about rivers, but for example forest protection, or prairies, protected areas or natural reserves, this methodology can be also applied to it, the only thing that need to be changed are the learning component.
In the first axis, the aim was to empower the target audience through theoretical and practical actions, debates and criticism and to create the "Ave River ambassadors" to start a social transformation by creating an identity transversal to citizens and rivers. An intensive program was designed, and the target groups were the inhabitants of all the parish councils that the Ave River crosses in the Guimarães’ municipality, particularly students (aged 6 to 18), the green volunteers of each parish council, and the parish councils presidents. Five sessions took place in every school at the parish councils that the Ave River crosses, with at least one class per school. Non-target groups could also be involved in the Ave River monitoring.
In the second axis, the goal was to provide a scientific base for the environmental axis through an evaluation of the ecological status of the Ave River that allowed the identification of the main constraints along the river. Eleven sampling sites were selected, with 100m long sections, and two periods for analyses were defined. All studies were conducted at the Landscape Laboratory, in its Nature & Biodiversity and Water resources labs. The field trips for sampling also allowed the identification and georeferencing of potential sources of contamination. All collected information was used to develop a scientific information-based procedure to support the decision-making process of supervisory entities.
The third axis explores the scientific dimension of the rivers' rehabilitation, adding the citizens' dimension to recover the rivers' identity and extending it to the next generation. Citizens had an active role throughout the project, so the communication plan was established to ensure the dissemination and replicability of the project among all participants, general population and project partners.
Every global challenge has to be tackled locally first so it can be expanded in wider forms of solution. In this case by addressing the issue locally we could create a foundation and a methodology to try to protect and conserve our main river in Guimarães. But this project can be used as an example and it can be replicated trough every other river in our country, always mediating the scaling of the river and the size of the project, meaning that this type of project can be applied in every other river in the world, helping to resolve some of the global challenges that rivers face now-a-days. Besides that, this methodology can be adapted to other environmental issues and by doing that it can address other global issues in other places.
This project had already shown a lot of results, firstly the majority of the participants showed changes in their mentality and way of thinking, showing a lot of will to protect our water lines. Some of the suggestions that were given from the participants to protect the rivers were already applied in our municipality, showing to the participants that their opinion counts and it is valued. Because the results of this project were so positive, we decided to apply this project on the other 2 secondary water lines of Guimarães, Selho and Vizela rivers, using the same methodology, only changing the participants to communities that would reside, work or study near these two rivers. This project even resulted in a book describing the methodology used in the project, and in a cell phone app that can be used freely by everyone that wants to help us preserve and protect the rivers in Guimarães.
With this project the participants developed a more critical way of thinking about the issues that struck the local water lines, devising some strategies to fight those said issues and return the rivers to their natural ways. They also learned how to act as an environnmental agent and protector, by monitoring the rivers.
