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.