1. Presentation
2. Conceptual framework
3. Background
4. Objectives
5. Structure
6. Participants
7. Fields of application
8. Ecosystem Services
9. Team

Background

The Barcelona Provincial Council (Diputació de Barcelona) has traditionally been a pioneer in the field of supra-municipal planning and the management of protected natural areas.

In 1972 the Sant Llorenç del Munt and l'Obac Natural Park was created and this represented the starting point of the preservation process of the areas of maximum interest and those subject to greater pressure for transformation in the province of Barcelona. The process continued with the declaration of the Montseny Natural Park (1977), the Garraf Park (1986), the Castell de Montesquiu Park (1986), the Montnegre i el Corridor Park (1989) and the Olèrdola Park (1992), covering more than 70,000 protected hectares.

In the early nineties, the Natural Areas Department opted to promote the protection of strategic areas for connecting existing parks, with the aim of establishing a true network of interconnected protected areas, the "Green Ring". At the same time, it put forward a new form of governance for the management of these spaces, with the establishment of consortia with other authorities and associations. The Serralada Litoral Park (1992), the Foix Park (1993), the Serralada de Marina Park (1997), the Guilleries-Savassona Natural Area (1998), and the Baix Llobregat Agricultural Park (1998) were created. Finally, with the incorporation of the Collserola Park, the current Nature Park Network, with more than 100,000 protected hectares, was achieved.

There is currently the conviction that the most effective way of protecting natural systems is through a more integrated approach to land management: strategic spatial planning. to maintain and improve the functionality of ecosystems, and to reduce the impacts of urban settlements and infrastructure on natural systems. However, the establishment of a true green infrastructure through integrated land use planning also requires bringing different levels and sectors of the administration together in order to work in a cooperative and coordinated way.

In our case, this new approach means continuing to work in protected areas, but also extending these concepts and proposals for land use planning at both regional and municipal levels, which are the responsibility of the Government of Catalonia and the municipalities. To this end, and based on our experience and knowledge in the field, our intention is to make the information contained in the SITxell project available to the competent authorities and offer our technical assistance in the urban and regional spatial planning processes. So far, this collaboration has been established with many municipalities and various departments of the Government of Catalonia, and it has allowed the application of the content of SITxell to multiple plans and projects, with very satisfactory results for all parties.