Last week, the three-monthly monitoring meeting of the LIFE Vía de la Plata project was held online. The BISITE group participates in this project together with the Municipal Housing and Urban Planning Board, Salamanca City Council, the Geosciences Group USAL and the UNESCO Chair of Sustainable Development and Environmental Education of the UPV/EHU. The aim is to create a new green infrastructure route along the 6.9 kilometres of this ancient Roman road in the municipality of Salamanca.

The meeting served to review the progress of the different aspects covered by the project, ranging from the transformation of the entire route through the use of nature-based solutions (SBN), planting of native species, adaptation to climate change, and monitoring of ecosystem services through Big Data technology.

The meeting also helped to prepare the first visit of the European Union monitoring expert, which will take place virtually on 22 April and will serve to check the progress of this pilot project chosen by the European Commission in the call of its LIFE 2020 programme.

LIFE Vía de la Plata will develop until the end of 2023, a total of 41 actions in different aspects related to the flora, fauna, water, citizenship, culture and heritage of our city. Experts are already defining the indicators that will help to measure ecosystem services and that, among other aspects, will improve biodiversity, health and the quality of life of the people of Salamanca.

We are very happy to participate in this type of initiatives and use our knowledge for the benefit of Salamanca. Other cities around the world can follow the example of this initiative.

You can learn more about LIFE Vía de la Plata in the following article: https://english.corchado.net/2020/06/19/life-via-de-la-plata-sustainability-technology-salamanca/

LIFE Vía de la Plata (LIFE19 CCA/ES/001188).