L’Albufera, located on the Mediterranean coast next to the city of Valencia, is a coastal lagoon of approximately 2,800 hectares fed by ravines, rivers and irrigation ditches. It includes permanent freshwater areas, a coastal bar on which a mature forest is established, a sandy beach and rice fields. It is an exceptionally biodiverse wetland that has the presence of more than 2,000 different taxa and a notable representation of endemic and threatened species. The wetland is home to up to 50 threatened fauna species, many of which are strictly linked to the aquatic environment. The extension of aquatic habitats such as coastal lagoons and calcareous peat bogs stands out, as well as the floodable depressions between the dunes, known as meshes.

The Valencia City Council is obliged to consider its wetlands as basic elements of territorial planning since L’Albufera specifically occupies more than 42% of the surface of its Municipal District, being also largely its property, a completely exceptional case. Among the measures that guarantee that this wetland is fully considered as an essential element of the territorial planning and integrated management of the city of Valencia, the following are highlighted:

• The General Urban Planning Plan (PGOU) of Valencia, which of course considers L’Albufera as one of its central planning elements, whose existence absolutely backbones the territory (the PGOU are in Spain the territorial planning instrument par excellence at the municipal level).
• The Valencia City Council is the owner of the lagoon and the Devesa de l’Albufera, and in exercising its responsibilities it has a Service exclusively aimed at the management, maintenance, and conservation of the Albufera and the Marjal de Rafalell and Vistabella (Devesa Service- Albufera).
• The Valencia City Council is an active member of the Governing Board of the L’Albufera Natural Park (protected space that coincides with the Ramsar site), which is the participatory body par excellence of the wetland, in which local communities and all professional associations are also represented. with interests in the wetland (fishermen, farmers, etc.).
• The Valencia City Council has also been a beneficiary of various LIFE projects aimed at the recovery of habitats and threatened species that have served to restore an important part of the wetland (LIFE Enebro and LIFE Duna), which have served to improve the impact of pollution lighting (LIFE Ecolight) and promote awareness, awareness and environmental education, and participation of society (“LIFE Environmental Seduction”), one of whose main objectives has been to encourage the participation of the different groups existing in the Ramsar site (neighborhood associations , professionals, etc.).
• It is also worth highlighting the fact that the Valencia City Council is an active partner of some civil society organizations that support decision-making by demonstrating solutions based on nature, and more specifically in the case of wetlands (Living Lakes, FEDENATUR-Europarc Federation, etc.)