Huerta Murcia Artigo

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Landscape Research, Vol. 29, No. 4, 385397, October 2004

La Huerta de Murcia: Landscape Guidelines for a

Peri-urban Territory

RAFAEL MATA OLMO* & SANTIAGO FERNANDEZ MUNOZ*,**

*Geography Department, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

**Humanities Department, Universidad Carlos III, Madrid, Spain

ABSTRACT Some of the results of the landscape planning study recently carried out forthe Metropolitan Area of Murcia in south-eastern Spain, specifically for the areas of theVega Media del Segura and the Huerta de Murcia, are presented. From the perspectiveof landscape as heritage, understood as a quality of the entire territory, methodologicalcriteria are contributed for the analysis of landscapes for spatial planning purposes, aswell as the result of trends, values and problems affecting the landscapes of peri-urbanagriculture. Public participation is highlighted throughout, and proposals are made forthe preservation and management of the landscape as a resource contributing to thesustainability of the metropolitan area.

KEY WORDS: Landscape, perception, landscape planning, heritage, peri-urbanagriculture

Introduction

Landscape is a quality of all territories, even those considered ordinary, thosevery altered by current land uses, and those suffering the loss of their values andidentity. There are common processes in peri-urban areas and in traditional ruralnetworks within urban agglomerations. The Huerta de Murcia belongs to this lastmodel.

This paper analyses some results from the study entitled Landscape Analy-sis, Diagnosis and Proposals at the Metropolitan Area of Murcia (Huerta de

Murcia and Vega Media regions) (Consejera de Turismo y Ordenacion delTerritorio de la Region de Murcia, 2001). The study, developed during 20012002, was commissioned by the Tourism and Spatial Planning Department of theMurcia (MAM) Regional Government. The main aims were, first, to becomeacquainted with the landscape situation, values and tendencies in the Metropoli-tan Area of Murcia (specifically the Huerta de Murcia), and second, to developlandscape planning and assessment proposals, following from a conception oflandscape both as an element of the quality of life in metropolitan areas and asa tourist resource for the region.

Correspondence address: Rafael Mata Olmo, Geography Department, Universidad

Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. Email: [email protected] Fernandez Munoz, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 28270 Colmenarejo,Madrid, Spain. Email: [email protected]

0142-6397 Print/1469-9710 Online/04/040385-13 2004 Landscape Research Group Ltd.

DOI: 10.1080/0142639042000289028


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386 R. Mata Olmo & S. Fernandez Munoz

Figure 1. Reference map.

The area of study and planning is physically a great alluvial plain coveringmore than 250 km2, close to the Mediterranean Sea, in an area of much drought,with less than 300 mm rainfall per annum. However, it has historically beenirrigated and highly cropped (huerta), with a permanent population of more thanhalf a million people. (See Figure 1.)

A great conceptual and methodological diversity exists within landscapestudies (Bell, 1999; Mata Olmo et al., 2001). We have chosen, in agreement withthe regional authorities and their technical advisors, a territorial and culturalheritage idea of landscape, well adapted to the characteristics of the area ofstudy. This project offered the opportunity to apply the principles and aims of

the European Landscape Convention (ELC) (Zoido, 2002) in a very dynamicmetropolitan area, with a population of more than half a million people.Throughout the research project, from the analysis stage to the proposals, specialattention was paid to the public participation process, within the existingtemporal and material possibilities. This is also an essential element in landscapedefinition according to the Convention. However, it was not part of the technicalrequirements settled by the regional authorities for this study.

The cultural heritage management of the Huerta de Murcias landscape,which has been built over several centuries (Calvo Garca-Tornell, 1975), basedon water management, intense irrigated cropping and an original settlementsystem in harmony with environmental peculiarities, implies an understandingof landscape as an historical product of culture and as human action over nature,or, in Alberto Clementis words, as a contextual totality defined by theinteraction of environmental, social and cultural processes, that give sense tolocal identity (Clementi, 2002, p. 18). At the same time, the inclusion of thepatrimonial element in the concept of landscape needs to overcome a dividedconception of cultural welfare (as singular elements in the geographic space) andto enlarge the idea of patrimony to include the network of complex relationshipsthat structure and give visible shape to the territory (Castelnovi, 2002). Land-scape is thus shown to be a superb document, a way of interpreting the world,inherent to the aesthetic experience implied in whatever landscape gaze.

Despite the deep changes in land use and the loss of landscape quality inthe peri-urban area of Murcia, the Huerta continues to be a place representativeof Europes traditional Mediterranean irrigated and urban landscapes. It is alsoone of the main marks of regional and local identity, and an element of quality


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La Huerta de Murcia 387

Figure 2. Topographic map of the Huerta in 1980, upstream from the city of Murcia.

in a metropolitan structure, in the process of saturation (See Figure 2). In sucha landscape, with few significant physical and biological elements (Rios, 1994;Gonzalez del Tanago et al., 1995), with an ecological matrix of limited connec-tivity and with serious environmental problems, the interest and values oflandscape are based, first, on the relevance and singularity of the Huertaslandscape picture as a whole, second, on some of its elements, and finally andespecially, on a complex rural network, with a long history and with valuableheritage elements, most of them related to a hydraulic culture. Apart from this,

the Huerta de Murcia provides excellent conditions for landscape contemplationand reading, thanks to its topographical configuration, defined by a widealluvial plain from west to east with high mountain barriers at both north andsouth.

The local scale of this study was appropriate as a geographic space, alandscape with sense, and one which offered scope for landscape planning. The

Huerta belongs mainly to the large administrative authority of the city of Murcia,inherited from a great medieval alfoz (Christian jurisdiction), but it also includesother small municipalities (Alcantarilla, Beniel y Santomera) that could not beomitted from the Huertas framework either functionally or visually. Therefore,

the landscape guidelines referred to this local territory as stretching acrossseveral municipalities.

Public Participation and Dynamic Landscape Knowledge

Those undertaking this study were convinced that plans and projects with social,economic and territorial influence must take local peoples points of view intoaccount, so the aims of the study were the result of an understanding, even iflimited, of a variety of different perspectives concerning the future. Nowadays,the challenge of every plan is how to incorporate the numerous groups involvedin a territory, who have diverse and often contradictory attitudes (Borja, 2003,

p. 112). This idea is related to the common opinion that it is necessary tointroduce methodological changes, to modify the invariable and foreseeableways of implementing plans, so that they become processes each time morecomplex and rational. Planning no longer requires a few technical bodies


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applying their own knowledge as the source of discussion, but the negotiationof many bodies, the design of sample experiences, innovation and learning, fora final elaboration of new and distinctive policies (Font et al., 2004, p. 23).

Social participation is even more important in a landscape planning projectbecause the idiosyncrasies of landscape and the values attributed to it by society

are both the result of identity relationships between local society and its territory(Arler, 1999). Consultation with social and institutional bodies is fully consistentwith the ELC, which in articles 5 and 6 establishes the necessity of foreseeingpublic participation procedures, of both local and regional authorities andother bodies involved in the conception and implementation of landscapepolicies.

On the other hand, experience shows that, to accomplish a goal as ambitiousas planning the landscape of a territory with so many territorial stresses as the

Huerta de Murcia, initiatives from public authorities are not enough. It is essentialthat a number of social organizations appraise and support the project to some

extent. It is not about the community starting the initiative, but about itbecoming involved in the early stages of territorial planning and projectdefinition.

Based on this conviction, the project has favoured the active incorporationof the community that lives and uses the land of the MAM at the different stagesof the study: the stage of identification and assessment of places and elements,and the most representative views of landscape; the stage of indicating changes,tendencies and problems; and the stage of drawing up proposals, policies andmeasures. In an area such as the Huerta de Murcia and the Vega Media with apopulation of more than 400 000, it is not easy to develop participation dynamicsable to involve every social group. As a result of this, after much discussion andtaking into account the technical possibilities of the study, the Delphy methodwas chosen (Landeta, 1999). It allows the inclusion in the programme of alimited, but highly qualified and representative, number of people. The aim isthat a significant part of the Murcian society is involved in the decision-takingprocess, even though this is done indirectly through experts and social associa-tions.

Forty-seven people were invited from a selection of experts in territorialmatters in the Huerta de Murcia and the Vega Media, from technical bodiesconcerned with the specific problem of traditional Mediterranean irrigatedcrops, and from people whose activities could be potentially influenced by the

proposals of the study. The Delphy method, with its three consecutive question-naires, was conceived as a transverse element throughout the project. Theconclusions of the Delphy process have allowed the improvement of the projectas a whole. Nevertheless, the method was particularly valuable during thediagnostic stage, because its results enabled the researchers to form a hierarchyof the importance of the identified landscape problems and processes.

Social participation was also particularly useful to identify the distinctivecomponents of landscape and the values given to them by local people, and tolocate the viewpoints and the most typical places of the MAM landscape. Oneof the most outstanding results of this process was the identification of territorial

landmarks currently very degraded and excluded from the sightseeing circuits,but with symbolic importance for local people. As a result, this identificationgave new meaning to the subsequent definition of actions to plan, improve andcreate the network of viewpoints.


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A fundamental aim of the study was to provide the regional authoritieswith an exhaustive and dynamic appraisal of the Huertas landscape. Previouslyno such systematic appraisal existed. From the analysis of the structural ele-ments of landscape, 15 landscape units were defined and characterized. Theseessentially morphological and functional units express at the same time the

internal diversity of the great Huerta landscape framework, different evolution-ary patterns (related basically to peri-urbanization and agricultural land use)and several levels of relevance and integrity of landscape. Some of these units,most obviously those with the most outstanding landscape configurations andthose with the best state of preservation, have comprised the base for some ofthe protection areas established in the planning proposals.

During the process of landscape analysis, together with expert knowledgeand the inputs from public participation (See Figure 3), cultural images oflandscape were consideredboth pictorial and literary that artistically re-cre-ate some elements and landscape configurations of the Huerta, and also reflect

recent changes. Examining novels and paintings of Murcia from the last century,it is easy to be aware of the transition from the dominant view in the first halfof the 20th century, that of a lyrical, fertile and idealized Garden of Eden, intothe Huerta as a problem, where there was a struggle for water and a rurallandscape in decay during the 1970s and 1980s. The Segura river is a criticalcentral feature, capable of giving life and fertility, but dry and rotten at the sametime.

Water and hydraulic management in a Mediterranean, alluvial and semi-arid environment are major problems within the landscape (Chabart et al., 1996).The sinuous Segura river builds and rebuilds its fertile floodplain. A dense,hierarchical and historical net of drainage channels, irrigation ditches and otherhydraulic infrastructures of Arab origin (acequia, azarbes) establish the networkfrom which the shape and performance of the Huerta are built, and on whichmost representations of the landscape and of regional identity are based.

Public participation has emphasized the primacy of water by noting it asone of the main elements, and places associated with water are most valued, butit is also one of the main problems. Contrasting with the floodplains physicallandscape, and providing the main panoramic components, the following ele-ments have also been evaluated: the mountains on the perimeter of the Huerta,the Cresta del Gallo mountain range, the group of alluvial fans and the cabezos(prominent hills at the northern border). They are images that, with no specific

geographical relationship to the floodplain, are associated with it via landscape,as has been demonstrated in the public participation process and in Murciaslandscape paintings from the last century.

The remaining elements that configure the landscape are associated withwaterways and their evolution. They are as follows:

1. the small plots and the mosaic of horticultural crops, orange, lemon and otherfruit trees, with remarkable differences between the ancient orchards, situatedupstream from the city of Murcia (See Figure 2), with irregular shapes and

winding trails, and the more rational and rectangular orchards, with orthog-onal shapes, resulting from the colonization of flooded areas during the 18thcentury (See Figure 4);

2. a dense system of rural paths, based on the hydraulic network design, that


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Figure 3. (a) Oil painting showing cypresses of the Huerta, Amela Costa, 1942. (b) A postcard of theHuerta in 1930.


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Figure 4. (a) Detail of a horticultural plot. (b) Horticultural mosaic downstream of Murcia.Colonization during 18th century.


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Figure 5. Panoramic view of the Huerta.

gives access to each point of the Huerta and nowadays offers visitors thepossibility to meditate on the landscape;

3. linear elements of natural vegetation, scarce or non-existent, close to the

recently channelled Segura river, but found at both sides of drainage chan-nels, irrigation ditches and azarbes;4. finally, a very dense system of settlements, extremely important to the

character of an intensely and historically urbanized landscape. Currentlythese settlements are defined by processes of re-urbanization, with a hier-archy and morphological configuration coherent with the physical propertiesof the Huerta and the irrigation system: the city of Murcia together with theSegura river in the centre of its Huerta; small villages close to mountain edgesof the floodplain, together with the main drainage channels; hamlets onfloodplains lined by drainage channels and irrigation ditches; and disperseddevelopment, traditionally for agricultural purposes, and at present mainlyresidential. (See Figure 5.)

Together with the analysis of morphological and functional properties of land-scape, the study has given special attention to scenic and perceptual issues,identifying the more or less formalized viewpoints, as well as some significantsightseeing circuits. Equally, levels of visual fragility for each landscape unithave also been estimated, considering the inherent values of each unit and theircapacity for emitting and receiving views. Four sources of information have beenused to select the observation points and the sightseeing circuits: fieldwork; 3-Dtechnology; travel literature and tourist guides; and the results of the public

participation process. For the characterization and assessment of landscapeobservation points the project has taken into account: the extent of the panor-amic views, the possible close readings, the local landscape and the diversity ofexternal references, and the condition of those visible landscapes.


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Figure 6. The Segura river today.

Landscape Situation and Planning Guidelines

Landscape diagnosis was based on the condition of its main components and on

certain aspects of landscape management (or lack of management). Its contenthas been organized in to four categories:

1. the deterioration of water landscapes, not only the Segura river and itshistoric channelled flow (Molina et al., 1990), but the irrigation network andits hydraulic elements, some of them with high cultural heritage interest.These are two landscape components repeatedly mentioned in the publicparticipation process as identity signals and as a problem (See Figure 6);

2. a critical review of the Huertas urbanization, a common and acceleratingprocess, with different morphological patterns related to routes and thetraditional system of settlements, with diverse levels of territorial intensity

and, to some extent, the result of a chronic town-planning indiscipline;3. the change of agricultural land-use pattern, with the improvement of citrus

culture, the loss of space, the diversity and intensity of horticultural crops,and the intensification of productivity at some of the floodplains edges,instead of traditional dry crops and steppes;

4. the absence of landscape management as a territorial resource. This isnoticeable, for instance, in the deterioration and abandonment of culturalheritage buildings of the Huerta, including problems of poor conservation,surroundings and access, and also in the lack of formal sightseeing routes andviewpoints.

The proposals implemented were the result of the diagnostic phase and theinputs from the public participation process. They are Landscape Guidelineswith a supra-municipal scopescops, which will have to be incorporated into the


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sub-regional spatial planning instrument of Murcias Metropolitan Area, estab-lished by the Soil Law (1/2000) from the Region de Murcia.

Social Educational and Training Programme

In a metropolitan area, as well as defining the landscape cultural heritage, it isnecessary to increase the territorial culture of the population and to increasetheir esteem for the landscape in which they live, or which they visit. To do this,a social educational programme was detailed, with the main aim of increasingand improving the demonstrable knowledge (not simply panoramic) ofthe Huerta de Murcias landscape. The programme is divided into four mainactivities:

1. the creation of a Huerta landscape Visitors Centre, which can take advantage

of a museum infrastructure, or rehabilitate some of the most highly appreci-ated buildings;2. the definition of a specific environmental education programme devoted to

the Huertas landscape (the existing ones are focused on biological aspects,with little interest in the landscape itself);

3. the implementation of a travelling exhibition of the Huerta de Murcia land-scape (across the municipalities and little villages of the region);

4. the elaboration and publication of a landscape guide for the Huerta.

Programme to Enhance Landscape VisionThe analysis of perceptions of this landscape has demonstrated, on the onehand, the excellent opportunities that the Huerta provides for contemplation atdifferent scales and, on the other hand, the abandonment of those existingviewpoints or places, already appreciated socially, that might merit this recogni-tion.

We have also verified the lack of any kind of programme for the interpret-ation of the landscape or any sightseeing routes of interest. Moreover, view-points act as attractions for visitors and, although the Metropolitan Area ofMurcia is not a common destination for tourists, the improvement of its

landscape offering in relation to the important heritage that already exists incertain sectors of the floodplain, can be an additional element for local tourismpromotion.

The plan proposed the following:

1. a complete treatment of the existing primary viewpoint network, involvingformalization, promotion and signage, as well as improvements to access,parking and landscape information, and environmental amelioration of itssurroundings;

2. similarly, a new network of viewpoints and landscape sightseeing routes, to

allow better access for the contemplation of the Huertas main landscapes. Thepurpose is to establish the real value of such landscape resources, simplifyingand supporting access for local people and, in certain areas, for the touristswho visit the city of Murcia or the region.


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Figure 7. Proposal for high landscape interest areas.

Protection and Conservation: Definition of Areas and Elements with a High LandscapeInterest; Planning Criteria

The project proposal also identifies and delimits certain High Landscape InterestAreas (Zonas de Alto Interes Paisajstico, ZAIP), with the main aim of protectionand improvement.

The criteria followed for ZAIP selection were: (1) highly valuable landscapeunits, highly esteemed socially (Rincones del Segura and Sierra de la Cresta delGallo); (2) areas of the Huerta that formed foregrounds and middle distancesfrom the main viewpoints (Huertas fragile network); (3) viewpoint surroundings(conservation and improvement); (4) the Huertas patrimonial milestones,identified during the public participation process, and their surroundings (Con-trapasadas water wheel, Alcantarillas and La Noras wheel, Funess and Alfategos

mills (17th and 18th centuries), and Sedas palace).The detail of the planning criteria varied from one area to another, but all

of them include: (1) strict regulation of land uses in order to preserve signs ofrural identity in the landscape; (2) priority for actions to rehabilitate the existingcultural heritage; (3) priority for actions that restore quality to the landscape; (4)priority for the development of an agro-environmental programme; and (5)intervention in the cultural heritage by public authorities. (See Figure 7)

Landscape Improvement and Regeneration

Proposals must improve and restore the landscape and the degraded landscape

elements, which are often much appreciated socially in the Huerta. They willalso have to handle areas with a significant visual impact, like the surroundingsof some roads or viewpoint foregrounds. Finally, they have to re-designatecertain facades and urban edges. These proposals concern regional and


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local public authorities as well as the government. The most readily dis-tinguished one is that entitled Water landscapes regeneration. It includes thedevelopment of a specific project for restoring and/or creating the Segura riversgroves and for the landscape processing of abandoned meanders and the systemof major water wheels and irrigation ditches (identified in the study). The

proposal Regeneration of degraded areas and landscapes is targeted at thehighly visible mining activities, the places of uncontrolled waste dumping andsome urban edges that still have the chance to be integrated into the ruralnetwork of the Huerta.

Town Planning and Agro-environmental Management

As with any other territorial intervention, landscape planning projects musthave clear legal support, a schedule, and all measures that will make proposalsreal and viable. Originally, a Territorial Performance Programme was foreseenas the result of this study and its proposals. It is a juridical instrument includedin the Soil Law 1/2001 that allows, by an exceptional route, its independentdevelopment without the requirement of being part of previous spatial planninginstruments of higher status. After the regional authorities have assessed them,the landscape proposals will comprise the landscape directive from the planninginstrument with sub-regional scope that it is established in the above law(Spatial Planning Directives).

Moreover, the study considered it essential to introduce an agro-environ-mental programme, with certain performance indicators and agreements for themaintenance and promotion of agricultural activities, whether they are a main

activity or just a secondary one. It will also support preservation and improve-ment initiatives for traditional elements of the rural network (forested areas atthe edge of forests, scattered tree formations, fences, maintenance and reinstate-ment/rehabilitation of infrastructures, etc.). The agrarian and land-use evolutionover recent decades in the Huerta de Murcia, as in other peri-urban irrigatedareas, demands greater environmental concern in agronomic areas, especiallywhen the intensification and modernization of irrigated crops is taking placeoutside of these areas, in places without any structural limitations on the newproductive and local irrigation systems (for instance, in the Campo de Cartagena,close to the Huerta in the Murcia Region). The rural landscape of the peri-urban

area is transformed into an element with cultural heritage and identity, and intoa planning objective for balanced and sustainable territorial models. Thesemodels preserve, improve and integrate the rural networks into the new urbanstructures, and defend the scarce and valuable resource of the alluvial soils ofthe floodplain.

References

Arler, F. (1999) Aspects of landscape or nature quality, Landscape Ecology, 15, pp. 291302.Bell, S. (1999) Landscape. Pattern, Perceptions and Process (London: E&FN Spon).Borja, J. (2003) La ciudad conquistada, pp. 111114 (Madrid: Alianza Ensayo).Calvo Garca-Tornell, F. (1975) Continuidad y cambio en la Huerta de Murcia, p. 162 (Murcia: Academia

de Alfonso X el Sabio).Castelnovi, P. (2002) Societa locali e senso del paesaggio, in: A. Clementi (Ed.) Interpretazioni di

paessagio, pp. 179197 (Roma: Meltemi editori).


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Chabart, M., Collin, J. J. & Marchall, J. P. (1996) Modelling short-term water resource trends in thecontext of a possible desertification of Southern Europe, in: C. J. Brandt & J. B. Thornes (Eds)

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Vega Media), 3 volumes (Murcia: Direccion General de Ordenacion del Territorio y Costas).Font, S., Goma, R. & Subirats, J. (2004) La participacion ciudadana. Diagnostico, Experiencias y perspecti-

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