Urban Waterbuffer at Zorrilla Stadium, Valladolid

Like many Spanish cities Valladolid is vulnerable to drought. In addition, some areas of the city are affected by flooding during the rainy season. The Zorrilla Football Stadium is one such area. A large paved surface with insufficient drainage causes flooding of the public roads. The stadium is also a major consumer of potable water for the irrigation of its football fields, a maintenance activity with high operational costs. To face these challenges the City of Valladolid is implementing sustainable solutions that make the city climate resilient and more attractive for its inhabitants.

With support from the Partners for Water programme, a feasibility study was executed to determine the suitability of the subsurface for rainwater storage, the cost-effectiveness, and the impact of the BlueBloqs technology on the site. With the positive results, the design for the implementation of a BlueBloqs ASR system was started. A hybrid solution was designed to enable direct reuse of treated rainwater, as well as storage in the underground for extraction in the summer months for irrigation. This way a solution was created to prevent flooding in the area and to reduce the operational costs of the Real Valladolid, while creating a reliable source for freshwater supply for irrigation.

Rainwater runoff from the stadium is collected through an existing drainage system. A new stormwater collection system is designed to capture runoff from the parking lot and bring it into an underground retention tank of 400 m3. A BlueBiofilter is designed to treat the heavily polluted water, and integrated as an urban feature in a meeting point, at the northern facade of the stadium. The treated water is supplied to an existing deposit tank in the stadium for direct use for irrigation or infiltrated in the aquifer. The infiltrated water is recovered in the summer months and supplied to the stadium for irrigation, when river water is not available.