In Spain, too much construction has been carried out in areas prone to flooding. Few people today question the excesses of brick, particularly on the Mediterranean coast, where the last drop of cold in Valencia has already caused more than 200 deaths. However, there are still urban projects in the design phase or already validated, with thousands of housing units, even entire neighborhoods, which are being deployed near rivers and beaches.
The almost unprecedented flooding in Valencia has increased pressure on some of these projects. Neighborhood groups and environmentalists are demanding that no more flood zones be built on. Meanwhile, some planners and engineers are open to strengthening requirements, while pointing out that current legislation is much more restrictive than that of the open bar years and that there are safeguards to be explored in some cases.
From the coast of Barcelona, where almost 2,000 housing units are approved between the Besòs river and the beach, to the Urdaibai biosphere reserve, where a new Guggenheim headquarters is planned, or a hotel on the banks of the Tagus on his passage. For Toledo, the list of projects concerned is long.
It’s not just environmentalism that calls for revision. In Seville, where the large urban sugar factory of Tablada runs along the Guadalquivir, it was the mayor who put the brakes on. “If there are flood zones, it is better to forget,” said José Luis Sanz after the Valencia disaster.
The most energetic entity when it came to demanding “not one more brick” in flood-prone areas was Ecologistas en Acción. “We must be frank: with what has already been built and given how the phenomena are worsening with climate change, it must be banned directly in these areas,” declares its spokesperson, Érika González.
In Catalonia, the association called for a moratorium on new urban plans, even in low-risk areas. The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, announced that he would review all activities carried out in flood-prone areas, but did not elaborate further. It remains to be seen whether these words will result in the paralysis of any ongoing plans. The most controversial is undoubtedly the expansion of Barcelona-El Prat airport, defended by the PSC although it is in the Llobregat delta and touches a lagoon.
However, over the last two decades, different regulations, starting from the land law to the definition of preferential flow zones – where flooding can be more dangerous – have reduced the margin for construction. “Currently, the procedures are long and the administrations are more restrictive, because they know that they are taking a risk,” explains Julián Galindo, architect and professor of town planning, territory and landscape at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC).
He and other planners consulted are not as forceful in challenging any construction in a flood-prone area, and remember that the projects involve already urban land. or major transformations of land, require reports from Civil Protection and the competent water department. management authority.
“We have a much better management capacity than 60 years ago, but at the same time weather phenomena and climate change have an impact that requires greater complexity in the measures to be adopted,” explains geographer and urban planner Helena Cruz.
Currently, these experts point out, there are autonomous communities in which it is very difficult to accept projects in high-risk areas. And they ask that the so-called return period (the probability with which a flood can occur, which generally varies between 10 and 500 years) not only be taken into account. For example, very briefly, Galindo warns, it is worse to build in an area of low frequency but where water flows violently – like Mediterranean torrents – than in an area more prone to flooding but with rivers that are better monitored and surrounded by land with greater water absorption capacity.
Only four examples in the Barcelona region
In the Barcelona metropolitan area alone, at least four flood zone plans are on the table, each in a different processing phase but all with a common element: the opposition of neighborhood and environmentalist platforms. The most emblematic and also the most advanced is the one that provides for the construction of 1,800 homes, in addition to other facilities and an audiovisual center, in the area of the Three Chimneys, in Sant Adrià del Besòs.
The Urban Master Plan (PDU) is approved, but the Entesa platform for a Large Coastal Park has taken it to court because it is in a maritime and river flood zone, as it is next to the Besòs River and by the sea. While awaiting the judgment, the validation of the plan was accompanied by a series of requirements, such as the elevation of levels of up to five meters, the installation of a marsh to laminate the water or the incorporation of a warning system.
Other examples of Barcelona, a city conditioned by its high density and its problems of access to housing, are found in Mollet del Vallès (a plan with 2,800 new apartments), Cornellà de Llobregat (la Ribera-Salines, with 2,400 housing units next to the Llobregat river) and Rubí. This last plan is more modest, with only three blocks, but on the edge of one of the streams which violently overflowed in 1962 and caused between 600 and 1,000 deaths, which provoked the rejection of neighbors and political opposition .
Murcia and the Balearic Islands: conflict over regulations
In addition to urban plans, in some autonomous communities the conflict directly concerns regulations that affect flood zones. It is found in the Balearic Islands and especially in Murcia, the most flood-prone region in Spain. In the first case, the administrative simplification law promoted by the PP, currently undergoing parliamentary procedure, will give way to construction on rural land, which, according to the Terraferida entity, could concern more than 570 plots located in flood-prone areas.
In Murcia, the conflict goes back a long way. In 2022, the regional government accused the Hydrographic Confederation of Segura (CHS) of having prepared a “very detailed” flood map that forced the paralysis of “all constructions in the city”. After a period of allegations, and with complaints also from the construction sector, the CHS ended up revising downwards a total of 1,600 hectares subject to flooding.
Despite this, the Murcian capital continues to have construction infrastructure. The Ministry of the Interior, Emergencies and Territorial Planning has approved a regulation authorizing construction in Preferential Flow Zones for municipalities which have more than a third of their surface area in these perimeters, which prevents them to direct future developments towards non-flooding areas. In fact, it’s a possibility contemplated by state law.
Cases in Alicante, Valladolid, Toledo and Urdaibai
One of the projects that has raised the most dust in recent times is located precisely in the Valencian Community. This is the growth of Guardamar del Segura, where the river of the same name flows. They plan to develop an area bordering the wetlands, which aspires to house 1,000 new homes and, for more INRIhas part of the perimeter affected by level 2 (the second most dangerous of the 6) of the Valencian flood plan (Patricova). The Friends of Wetlands (AHSA) organization in southern Alicante has already presented allegations regarding the project.
Far from the coast, in the interior of the peninsula, there are also developments in flood-prone areas, where opposition has increased these days by several degrees. 25 kilometers from Valladolid, in the municipality of La Pedraja del Portillo, which has barely 1,000 inhabitants, more than 1,200 housing units are planned in a macro-urbanization rejected not only by environmentalists, but also by local technicians. Floods are in this case one of the various environmental arguments put forward by its detractors.
In Toledo, new developments are also being undertaken and one of them, the Special Plan for Reform and Improvement of the Interior (PERIM) of the Cava Bridge, envisages building a luxury hotel in side of the Tagus. Compared to the promoters who defend the initiative, there is the rejection of neighborhood associations, environmental groups, urban planners and even experts from the Tajo Chair of the University of Castile-La Mancha.
They prepared a report warning that the hotel and other facilities would be located in areas where water is “preferentially” concentrated during times of flooding (the so-called preferential flow zone).
Finally, there is the case of the Guggenheim Museum and its two new headquarters in the Basque Country, both located in flood-prone areas. Although it is only a project at the moment, if it comes to fruition they will literally be on the water, connected by a green corridor between the towns of Gernika and Murueta.
The head office of Gernika would be the former Dalia cutlery, located on one of the banks of the Oka River. The Basque Water Agency (URA) has already alerted in a report sent to the Basque Parliament of the “significant risk situation” of flooding on the site, even if with the recommended measures, the Government considers that it can move forward with the plan.
Concerning the second seat, that of Murueta, in the heart of the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve, the Coastal Directorate acceded to the request of the Provincial Delegation of Biscay to reduce the protection of the coast to only 20 meters compared to the 100 previously established. . Entities such as Greenpeace and local platforms have already filed complaints.
Journalists Carmen Bachiller, Javier Ayuso, Belén Ferreras, Elisa Almagro and Esther Ballesteros collaborated on this report.
