Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing

The installation of a hundred artificial reef blocks will help boost biodiversity at the Olympic Port. The biotopes will be located between the seawall and the underwater defences in front of it. The project gets under way at the beginning of 2023 and will take seven months to complete.

The reef blocks come in addition to the 2,000 concrete blocks installed in the summer of 2021 to reline the seawall and protect the Olympic Port from the effects of storms. Over 300 were made more natural to foster marine diversity.

Roughly two metres wide and one metre high each, the biotopes will be submerged in six clusters to form a biogeneration reef covering a surface area of 1,300 square metres. The blocks are made up of prefabricated concrete and anchored to the seabed. The design means they are full of cavities, favouring the proliferation of marine species such as soft coral, groupers, conger eels, Mediterranean moray, sponges, octopuses and lobsters.

At a cost of 98,000 euros, the work forms part of the transformation of the Olympic Port, which includes the goal of fostering marine biodiversity in the area, a task being carried out jointly with Barcelona Zoo.