AMBER workshop along the Guadarrama River in Spain

On April 12th, AMBER partner, AEMS Rios con Vida, took staff members from visitor centers from Madrid and team from centers of Guadarrama Mountain Range National Park on a field excursion workshop to a Regional Park of the middle reach of Guadarrama River. The Guadarrama River currently suffers from pollution and the used to dump its waste into the river. Now, this is regulated a bit more but is still noticed through the rivers bad water quality.

During the workshop, the group hiked along a portion of the river and focused on the barriers that disrupted the rivers continuity. They had the opportunity to visit and track 3 types of barriers, a vflat station, a weir with a bypass and a ford. Rios con Vida explained the effects of barriers to a river and its associated fauna and the importance of properly managing them.

From this workshop, Sara Garrido, member of AEMS Rios con Vida, was able to create a social group of environmental awareness about rivers and to this group they will send videos, tweets, distribute relevant AMBER information and more. This workshop was a great opportunity to get Madrid visitor centers involved in spreading the word about the AMBER barrier tracker application and, in the future, lead to more educational lessons for visitor center visitors!

There is a follow-up workshop on the 29th of June to continue the work and encourage the visitor centers to create programs and activities about rivers.