An important collaboration agreement was signed between the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, through its Institute of Geography, and Inmobiliaria Las Salinas (ILS), to contribute to the Master Plan, where a future pole of real estate development and public spaces is projected that could reconfigure the face and urban fabric of the city of Viña del Mar. The agreement signed seeks to provide the Las Salinas project with substantive information and systematization to successfully carry out the restoration processes of the natural cycles, through the study of the morphology of the Marga Marga estuary basin and its projection into the bay. The above, associated with the displacement and distribution systems of the sediments that make up the beaches, bars and dunes present in the bay of Valparaíso, observing the interrelation of these with the natural life systems and the planning of the urban environment, with the purpose of contributing technically in the progress of a new orientation of the project. Within the framework of this agreement, Inmobiliaria Las Salinas will provide support for the implementation of research, development and technology transfer strategies that contribute to this purpose. “Everything that happens in the Marga Marga basin has a direct impact on Las Salinas beach. Our expert center has the capacity to respond to the adaptability of the climatic field, looking for alternatives of reconvention and restoration mechanisms to adapt to these conditions and thus recover the beaches”, explained the director of the Institute of Geography of the PUCV, Luis Álvarez, master in Urbanism, who leads the general coordination of the project. Arturo Natho, general manager of Inmobiliaria Las Salinas, referred to this initiative as a response to the needs of the city. “We asked ourselves what the city issues are and how our project can be part of that; the recovery of the Marga Marga has motivated all this work and we are very grateful to be able to work with the PUCV. In practice, there are spaces that can generate substantial changes”, qualifying as a great challenge the process of recovery of the estuary, which should be a reflection of the quality of life in the area. The rector of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Claudio Elórtegui, valued the signing of the agreement as a contribution to society and the environment. “For us as a University, an institution distinguished by its commitment to society and our contribution to the Region, it is very significant to participate in this initiative”. The study “Beaches and their sediments. The environmental-natural context of its development, from the Marga Marga basin to the beach sites”, will be developed in three stages and will consider the metropolitan scales of Valparaiso, local communal, and the beaches south and north of Punta Ossas; on the basis of the contents Physical, Environmental and Anthropized Environment, projected over a period of eight months starting from the signing of the agreement and ending on November 30, 2017.
