Alicante, Spain
City population: 331770
Duration: 2015 – ongoing
Implementation status: Ongoing
Scale: Micro-scale: District/neighbourhood level
Project area: 3000 m2
Type of area: Public Greenspace Area
Last updated: October 2021

Opened in 1987, Lo Morant Park is located in the northern part of the city of Alicante. Its flat surface of 12 hectares is ideal for walking among its vegetated spaces and for the development of multiple activities focused on the neighborhood (Ref. 1). An educational environmental tour of the park is in place for learning and discovering the fauna and flora. The park offers different social activities and facilities (sports facilities, leisure). (Ref. 1). It is the largest park in Alicante with a dimension of twelve hectares, and has a great diversity of plant species and sports and cultural spaces. (Ref. 3)

Lo Morant Park
https://www.alicante.es/es/equipamientos/parque-lo-morant

Overview

Nature-based solution

  • Parks and urban forests
  • Large urban parks or forests
  • Botanical gardens

Key challenges

  • Green space, habitats and biodiversity (SDG 15)
  • Habitat and biodiversity conservation
  • Green space creation and/or management
  • Regeneration, land-use and urban development
  • Promote natural styles of landscape design for urban development
  • Health and well-being (SDG 3)
  • Enabling opportunities for physical activity
  • Creation of opportunities for recreation
  • Cultural heritage and cultural diversity
  • Preservation of natural heritage
  • Protection of historic and cultural landscape/infrastructure

Focus

Maintenance and management of urban nature existing green areas, Protection of natural ecosystems, Knowledge creation and awareness raising

Project objectives

-Developing multiple activities focused mainly on the neighbourhood (brochure uploaded) -Increase awareness about the fauna and flora of the park (brochure uploaded) -Proposing a walk "of freshness and calmness" (brochure uploaded) - "to give value to natural spaces and protect the Mediterranean landscape" (Ref. 3) -added Irrigation system (Ref. 5)

Implementation activities

An educational tour was developed with signage called the "Guía Didáctica de los Parques de Alicante" that was proposed to observe the different species and visitors could identify them more easily thanks to this guidance. Information panels have been installed along the educational path with drawings and figures of the most representative floral species, with QR codes to scan and download the pathway information. (Ref. 3) and the planting of a total of 320 trees of eight different species (Ref 5). -added Irrigation system (Ref. 5) - renovation in 2019 of the public toilets and the basement of the amphitheater (Ref 5)

Biodiversity conservation or restoration-focused activities

Biodiversity conservation:

  • Protect and enhance urban habitats
  • Preserve and strengthen existing habitats and ecosystems
  • Preserve and strengthen habitat connectivity
  • Protect species
  • Undertake specific measures to protect species
  • Undertake specific measures to protect native species
  • Undertake specific measures to protect valued species
  • Means for conservation governance
  • Manage biological resources for conservation and sustainable use
  • Raise public awareness
  • Create and use scientific knowledge for conservation

Main beneficiaries

  • Citizens or community groups

Governance

Management set-up

  • Government-led

Type of initiating organisation

  • Local government/municipality

Participatory approaches/ community involvement

  • Unknown

Details on the roles of the organisations involved in the project

Organized by "Medio Ambiente" which is the Department of the Environment of the Alicante city council. (Ref. 1)

Project implemented in response to ...

... an EU policy or strategy? Unknown
... a national policy or strategy? Unknown
... a local policy or strategy? Unknown

Financing

Total cost

€2,000,000 - €4,000,000

Source(s) of funding

  • Public local authority budget

Type of funding

  • Earmarked public budget

Non-financial contribution

Unknown

Impacts and Monitoring

Environmental impacts

  • Environmental quality
  • Improved air quality
  • Reduced noise exposure
  • Improved soil quality
  • Green space and habitat
  • Increased conservation or restoration of ecosystems
  • Increase in protected green space areas
  • Reduced biodiversity loss
  • Increased number of species present
  • Increased spread of native/heirloom/open-pollinated seed
  • Increased ecological connectivity across regeneration sites and scales
  • Other

Economic impacts

  • More sustainable tourism

Socio-cultural impacts

  • Social justice and cohesion
  • Fair distribution of social, environmental and economic benefits of the NBS project
  • Improved access to urban green space
  • Health and wellbeing
  • Improved physical health
  • Improved mental health
  • Gain in activities for recreation and exercise
  • Cultural heritage and sense of place
  • Improvement in people’s connection to nature
  • Increased awareness of flora and fauna as culturally and historically meaningful
  • Increased appreciation for natural spaces
  • Education
  • Increased support for education and scientific research
  • Increased knowledge of locals about local nature
  • Other

Type of reported impacts

Expected impacts, Achieved impacts

Presence of formal monitoring system

Unknown

Presence of indicators used in reporting

No evidence in public records

Presence of monitoring/ evaluation reports

No evidence in public records

Availability of a web-based monitoring tool

No evidence in public records

References

Lo Morant Park
https://www.alicante.es/es/agenda/itinerario-ambiental-guiado-y-gratuito-parque-lo-morant-0