Roads are a fundamental element, and both a cause and effect, of the development of modern societies. They transform human relationships and production methods, logistics and the exchange of goods and services. They have a multiple effects on land, both in its construction and exploitation. The construction of roads always makes use, and on many occasions intensive use, of natural resources and they affect the habitats into which they are introduced. But roads also use up and "consume" a resource that is more difficult to quantify: the landscape.
For this reason, both insular and European legislative and regulatory frameworks, particularly the Plan Insular de Ordenación de la Isla de Tenerife [Tenerife’s Ordinance Plan], pay special attention to properly combining environmental factors with territorial, functional and economic ones.
With regulatory support and an increasing environmental culture, the Roads and Landscape Department has been making a huge effort to successfully integrate various infrastructures into the landscape and to prevent, minimise and correct the environmental impact in all stages of planning, construction and operation, which translates into:
- The establishment of common intervention criteria: Guidelines for the environmental and landscape improvement of Tenerife’s Insular Road Network.
- Development of projects and concrete actions for improvement
- MEDI (Strategic Framework for Island Development) landscape improvement programme
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