Productive Waterscapes in the West-South of Europe: Using Circular Economy Theory to Drive the Change from a Linear to a Circular Paradigm of Water and Greenways

Abstract

Re-thinking, re-design, re-use are the keywords of the ecological economy that seek to link social, economic and environmental aspects together. These fundamental principles can be observed in the theories proposed by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and are the basis of the new discipline called “Circular Economy.” Recent studies seem to advise that the transition to sustainability (Foro Springtif 2015) is being stopped for political, cultural, economic, and infrastructural reasons. This article shows and discusses, through presenting different case studies, the situation of the circular economy applied to periurban greenways and waterfronts. Presenting obstacles and opportunities, the researchers want to give some advice and trace a method capable of shifting from a linear economy to a circular economy in urbanism and land management. The focus on the historical link between cities and water, shows that the linear economy is in a continuous relationship of love and hate, thanks to the force of the water and the engineering knowledge of the human beings: a strong relationship when water was used for the industrial revolution, of distance and fear when the water was wide and polluted. In the last decade, this relationship seems to be skipped. Thanks to climate change, flood events appear to occur with increasing frequency and intensity, but municipalities allow industry and logistical compounds to settle near the rivers, affecting the aquifer. The paradigm shift to a circular economy should include a democratic society where citizens are promoting different lifestyles and push the decision-makers to develop new strategy and policy. This new vision is well applied in different contexts but doesn’t seem to be able to face and influence the protection of the last ecological corridors present in peri-urban areas, the reclaiming of derelict and polluted industrial areas, and the development of a virtuous approach to new industrial and logistical settlements. The conclusion of the paper collects positive case studies, using them to show some methods and strategies able to drive the change through a new balance between ecological restoration and economic development. Re-thinking, re-design, re-use are keywords of the ecological economy that seek to link social, economic and environmental aspect together. Introduction The paper seeks to critically consider the path of knowledge in waterfront management under the changing climate scenario. Due to climate and human phenomena, cities are addressing peri-urban waterfronts with different strategies. Depending on the importance citizen giving to water the ‘blue’ is conceived like a risk or a value. To understand the real importance given to water in the entire process is good, in order to analyze the relationship between productive areas of cities and rivers and basins. The authors, 1 Granello and Manfredi: Productive Waterscapes in the West-South of Europe Published by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2019 collaborating between Milan and Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) are researching the reclamation of rivers, channels and artificial basins. Studying the two case studies helps to show variance in a real multidisciplinary screening. We make the argument that the study of the realities present in the south of Europe would give a sum of positive or negative values, such that they would help to understand and redirect to a virtuous model for the creation of a territorial blue line for the greenways. Figure 1. The 2008 financial crisis paused developments Goals and Objectives During the whole of the 20th century, a close relationship of localization of the industrial buildings near water elements was achieved: both for the necessary use of water in the production processes, and for the reckless use of the same water courses as places in charge of discarding the waste liquids and polluted industrial production. Now, however, after the decline of the manufacturing and mining industry, new possible scenarios of redevelopment and recovery of vast areas of land are opening up. These areas are disputed between virtuous ecological reclamation intentions and the re-conversion towards a development of a logistics networks consequent to the international economic system. Together, with the work that is de-localized, the relative share of costs in terms of environmental pollution is exported . For this reason, on the one hand the economy is seriously impoverished, while on the other it obtains a sort of environmental opportunity, in which new recovery scenarios are opened up. The possible restoration of blue linear systems with high environmental and landscape ecological value, such as watercourses, becomes an opportunity. With the transformation of the riverside from industrial rails to urban waterfronts, the theme of water, both of its quality and of its quantity, is concomitant and urgent, as much as it is full of possible design inventions. Methods The tendency to simplify the phenomena related to urbanism and landscape may seem simplistic and naive, but it is fundamental to define the trends and polarization that affect developments in current contexts. Reading the post-economic crisis scenario and its effects on the city today is not easy due to the contradictory messages that a market in difficult recovery and a fearful society exchange. It is undeniable 2 Proceedings of the Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning, Vol. 6, No. 1 [2019], Art. 48 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/fabos/vol6/iss1/48 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7275/ebtc-n726 that this communication and complexity has repercussions on the built and natural environment. It seems useful to us to develop and clarify the two main trends that can be observed in the society defined as climate change: Economic recovery is associated with new development models. These are linked above all to the intangible and to the logistics. While the first model, that of new technologies is inextricably linked with the city, the second is defined by its network connection and, therefore with the support in existing infrastructures. It is therefore clear that defining a system of elements of an economic development network is based on the construction and creation of new gray lines capable of supporting technological development. We call grey-line all that consumes soil, interrupts ecological corridors, reduces the permeability and quality of soils and divides the human being from contact with the cycles of the seasons, of the agricultural production, etc. In this case, we can graphically define the development of these examples as lines in which most endogenous relationships are in consumption, in impact, in transformation, whereas the closure of cycles remains as a wish and not a characteristic. Unlike the linear or market economy, there is a second trend that today appears in the society that proposes a circular model, in which the whole cycle tends to close without causing exogenous impacts. The model of the circular economy, far from being confused with degrowth, proposes a model based on the life cycles of animals, seasonal cycles, product transformation and the inclusion of waste in production cycles. However, this technically sustainable and decisive model clashes with the lack of a consolidated technique and results. A different model is not proposed, but a volatile and unequal market is brought back to a balanced and resource-friendly system in the future. Contrary to the first two systems that both propose the preponderance of an economic system with respect to an ecological system, there is the theory of Happy Degrowth, which proposes a constant reevaluation of the growth paradigm and proposes the elimination of all those superfluous actions typical of the consumer society. Each city can be analyzed according to these three trends and the balance between them. Brescia and Alcalá are examples and models. Being historical cities, it is possible to reconstruct a development model in which to observe the weight of past choices, outline current trends and recent developments and read the pushes towards the near future facing the city. Case One: Alcalá de Henares Alcalá de Henares, a Roman city prior to the founding of Madrid, is part of the Valle del Henares (Henares Valley), geographic element and infrastructure system of international importance. The Henares river, in its middle term, has been a cradle since Roman times. Guadalajara, Complutum, Siguenza, and Brihuega represented concrete examples of a Roman villae system along the Via Augusta. With the Arab conques,t the area moved to form part of Al Andalus (Andalusy) and became a frontier and defense against the kingdom of Castilla. The fortress (Alcalá), Alcázar and towers were the landscape of the southern shore, primarily protected by the river and its particular formations and then by the geographic position of dominion of the valley. 3 Granello and Manfredi: Productive Waterscapes in the West-South of Europe Published by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2019 Figure 2. Valle del Henares, del Sorbe al Jarama, año de 1770 Figure 3. Drawing of Alcalá de Henares made in the year 1565 by the Flemish painter Anton van der Wyngaerde, known in Spain as Antonio de las Viñas In 1499 Cardinal Cisneros founded the first Renaissance, humanist and universal university within a block of the historic city which today is called Manzana Cisneriana and which is the reason for the recognition of the city as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. His position was clear and the relationship with the river was narrow and interdependent. We can find in the words of the Mayor of Alcalá de Henares in 2001 a clear recognition of the preservation of the environment like hardware for a circular economy: The idea of environmental and sustainable recovery of the Henares Islands like paradigm of the Local Circular Economy. Alcalá has been a moderate exception to the industrial and residential occupation of the meadow of the