Madrid Río is an urban park in the Spanish capital

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

, built along an urban stretch of the

Manzanares River The Manzanares () is a river in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, which flows from the Sierra de Guadarrama, passes through Madrid, and eventually empties into the Jarama river, which in turn is a right-bank tributary to the Tagus. In its ...

following the burial of the M-30 bypass road in this area. It is the result of a project led by the architect Ginés Garrido, who won the international ideas competition organised by the Madrid City Council in 2005 to redevelop the area. The project started with the idea of recovering the banks of the

for the use and enjoyment of the citizens. The section of the river that is now known as Madrid Río is the section that was boxed in by the M-30 bypass road, a road that isolated the river between the two directions of the highway as well as creating a barrier and fracture between the two sides of the city, the district of Arganzuela on the left bank, and the districts of

Latina Latina or Latinas most often refers to: * Latinas, a demographic group in the United States * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America. *Latin Americans Latina and Latinas may also refer ...

, Carabanchel and

Usera Usera is a district of Madrid, Spain. It lies on the southern (right) bank of the Manzanares. It is home to about a 10% of the Chinese citizens in the whole Madrid region. History The district was created in the city restructuring that took ...

on the right bank. The connection of the M-30 with the A-5 motorway, the road to Extremadura, separated the city in an impassable way from Casa de Campo, Madrid's largest park. The project involved the undergrounding of the M-30 in this area as well as that section of the A-5 running parallel to Casa de Campo. There are seven dams that regulate the river as it passes through the city. They receive the waters of the

after passing through the Santillana reservoir, in

Manzanares el Real Manzanares el Real is a 8,936 inhabitant town (2020 statistics fro in the northern area of the autonomous Community of Madrid. It is located at the foot of The Pedriza, a part of the Sierra de Guadarrama, and next to the ''embalse de Santillana' ...

, and the El Pardo reservoir, in the municipality of Madrid, which is why they are numbered from 3 to 9. Their mechanisms and locks have been repaired and the dams have been used for the new system of crossings. Initially, the project for the renaturation of the

as it passes through Madrid Río contemplated the opening of all the dams, except the last one, to create the conditions that would make it possible for the Madrid Río rowing school to train, but finally, contrary to what was first agreed and due to pressure from the local residents, it was also decided to also open the last one so that the river could flow freely. The water level has been dropped as the natural flow of the river has been restored. Accessible wooden boards and

fish ladder A fish ladder, also known as a fishway, fish pass, fish steps, or fish cannon is a structure on or around artificial and natural barriers (such as dams, locks and waterfalls) to facilitate diadromous fishes' natural migration as well as move ...

s have been added to encourage the continuity of the underwater fauna along the river. There has been a noticeable improvement in avian biodiversity along the river with herons and

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

s being regular visitors.

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External links

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