The Municipality of Murcia focuses on educating citizens and local industries to balance climate risks related to water and drought
The Municipality of Murcia, in collaboration with the departments of Urban Planning, Environment, Water and Agriculture, has developed its Climate Change Adaptation Strategy 2030.
The Municipality of Murcia member of ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, the Covenant of Mayors Europe, and engaged in the Green City Accord and the European Climate Pact in 2022, has published through the CDP-ICLEI Track the increasing climate risks related to decreasing rainfall, drought, heat waves and rising temperatures.
The Municipality of Murcia joined the European initiative 'Mayors Adapt' in 2014 and, thanks to this commitment, started to develop its own adaptation strategy. During this process, the European Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy Initiative was born, which Murcia immediately signed in 2016, ratifying the commitment to reduce CO2 emissions in Murcia by 40% by 2030.
As part of the pact, a climate risk analysis was conducted making it possible to identify the main hazards that the Murcian society will face in the future and laid the groundwork for determining the most appropriate adaptation measures. The water sector has been considered a priority since the strategy was first drafted and will continue to be until the period 2050-2064.
The Municipal Service ALEM (Local Energy and Climate Change Agency) is responsible for the coordination and implementation of the Adaptation Strategy, headed by María Cruz Ferreira Costa. The Adaptation Strategy establishes 31 actions to implement which include implementation period, monitoring indicators, budget and area in charge of its execution.
The aim is to foster mechanisms for greater societal resilience to changes in water availability. In this study, the focus will be on the implementation of educational and training programmes for youth and adults and on the municipality's strategic economic sectors regarding water risks.
Initiatives include among others amendments to the educational programme delivered in kindergartens, primary and secondary schools and awareness targeting the general population. One example is the educational programme ‘Murcia, ecología de una ciudad’ currently in its 27th edition.
The project is implemented through the following activities: the green school, with an educational approach towards creating a greater awareness of environmental, social, economic and cultural challenges; the eco-class, which includes 10 ecological themes which each class will focus on; environmental itineraries, sensorial experiences to get in touch with nature and the city's history; school gardening, based on ecological agriculture, increasingly present in the city's educational centres; and finally, exhibitions to illustrate the municipality's environmental problems and opportunities for improvements.
In addition, two other important initiatives promoted by the public administration are ‘ESenRed’, a network of sustainable educational centres, and ‘Campaña escolar de cambio climático’ which provides schools with educational material on climate change. The latter is promoted by the Spanish Network of Climate Cities and the Local Agency for Energy and Climate Change of the Municipality of Murcia. One of the campaign’s aims is to combat climate change and ensure the sustainable development of the municipality.
Regarding strategic economic sectors, the municipality has focused on awareness-raising and training campaigns on water management. The campaign targets the strategic sector of the agri-food industry, one of the main consumers of water, as well as all companies and sectors in the municipality. It focuses on one hand, on saving water by calculating the water footprint and, on the other hand, on practices to prevent water pollution, such as the discharge of wastewater, which impacts the treatment infrastructure and water quality.
Expected benefits include reducing environmental pollution, saving energy and water, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing resilience to drought and growing awareness on sustainability and climate resilience.
CDP-ICLEI Track 2022: https://data.cdp.net/
European Climate Pact: https://climate-pact.europa.eu/index_en
ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability: https://iclei.org/
Covenant of Mayors Europe: https://www.globalcovenantofmayors.org/region/euro...
Green City Accord: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/urban-environment/green-city-accord_en
Murcia, ecología de una ciudad: https://murciaecologiadeunaciudad.com/
ESenRed: https://programaseducativos.es/programa-esenred/
Campaña escolar de cambio climático: https://www.energiamurcia.es/actividades/