Aesthetic drainage in the pedestrianization of downtown Murcia
Every day, more people live in big cities. That is a reality.
And it poses a challenge in terms of mobility. The focus is increasingly on creating healthy spaces that are adapted to pedestrians and bikes.
This is because we are realising that cities have generally been taken over by motor vehicles and this directly affects the quality of the air we breathe.
Therefore, more and more cities are looking at removing this type of mobility from their centres.
Murcia, a city in the south east of Spain, is among them, having completely pedestrianised the Alfonso X El Sabio Avenue, one of its main thoroughfares.
With a total budget of more than 2 million euros and a timeframe of eight months, they have created a space that is free of motor vehicles on one of the city's most important roads, with the only exceptions being vehicles accessing garages, for loading and unloading, and cleaning vehicles.
As part of the pedestrianisation of the avenue, the drainage system was also overhauled, among other things. The requirements were that it had to be an efficient, aesthetically pleasing system that was easy to maintain.
After considering various options, a linear drainage system was installed, rather than a point drainage system.
This drainage system is more efficient in hydraulic terms and prevents waterloggings in specific areas. Puddles do not form on the road.
It also makes it easier to execute the paving work and avoids the need for underground water pipes. All of this makes the drainage project more cost-effective in terms of the final cost.
In addition, it facilitates cleaning and network maintenance, as it can be accessed from any point. In this particular project, to make these tasks as easy as possible, the buckets where sediment usually accumulates were adapted and the access units were modified.
It is vitally important to keep the drainage system clean.
Concealed drainage, an aesthetic solution
Whilst ensuring hydraulic efficiency with the linear drainage system and the optimised V-shape channels from the MultiV range, it was also important for the solution to be aesthetically pleasing.
Therefore, the concealed drainage system with single-slot grating was used, which is ideal for pedestrian areas as it is integrated in the paving. This concealed drainage is a simple way of ensuring that the water collection system goes unnoticed.
If you want to know more about this or any other drainage solution, contact us
The choice of drainage system was supported by the hydraulic calculations carried out by ULMA's technical department. We study each project with our OptimalDrain® software to ensure the best solution and to advise the customer in their decision.
In total, 900 linear metres were supplied for the system.
