environmental guidelines for the basque country

ENVIRONMENTAL GUIDELINES FOR THE BASQUE

COUNTRY

Basque Country, 2003

• The so-called Basque Y location plan.

• Photographs of the surveying area.

• Plan and longitudinal profile of the layout.

• Plan of environmental determining factors.

• Sketches showing the General Approach

and the new proposed solutions.

In order to facilitate construction

management related to the New Railway

Network of the Basque Country, the

Basque government proposed to draw

up Specific Instructions containing

landscape and environmental integration

criteria to guide consultants working on

temporary or definitive construction work

for railroad projects. The Guidelines lay

down the working method required for

the environmental integration throughout

all stages of the Project development by

means of the following phases:

Preliminary Environmental Analysis,

Corrective and Compensatory Preventive

Measures Proposal and Environmental

Monitoring Program Design. In the

second phase, landscape and

environmental harmonization criteria was

defined for the construction projects of

the four stretches of high speed railway

line hired by the Basque government in

Guipúzcoa.

From a methodological viewpoint, the

study was made in four successive

stages, according to the scale at which

the layout was approached. Geometric

factors were also taken into account. In

the first stage, a series of 1:10,000 scale

environmental, regional and landscape

studies were carried out. The second,

more detailed, stage, corresponding to

the definition of the occupation of all the

elements of the scheme, was carried out

at 1:5000 scale. In the third stage a plan

of environmental factors was drawn up

for each stretch to be studied at 1:2000,

represented on an orthophoto with the

superimposed topography and high

speed line trajectory. Once the problems

had been identified, the fourth stage was

carried out in detail, using the 1:1000

scale, defining each constructive

solution required to avoid or minimize

the environmental problems.