In the Valencia catastrophe, everyone can search for its origin wherever it suits them best, it all depends on when one is ready to return to the newspaper archives. Riverine areas began to be massively urbanized in the 1960s, during the developmentalism; With democracy came river analysis; and later it was proven that action protocols they don’t always work.
Hydrological alerts issued without notice, exchanges of information between organizations and administrations, the rage for water increased by climate change, late warnings from the population… The causes are multiple. But we can’t say that no one noticed it.
To research this prophecy, we must move back the calendar to 1999. Already in previous years, it had been detected that certain areas were clear. flood risk and the Generalitat Valenciana have commissioned a report entitled Territorial Action Plan for the prevention of flood risks in the Valencian Community (Patricova). The person responsible for assessing the risk and recommending priority actions was French Felix.
The professor of hydraulic engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia then had an innovative methodology, which made his analysis one of the most advanced. “We looked at 300 flood zones that we considered to be quite dangerous and determined that the entire Rambla del Poyo and the Pozalet ravine were in sixth place“, he assures on the phone.
The flooding of the Rambla del Poyo was the cause of most of the 200 dead who left DANA on October 29. “All the Valencian experts knew that the risk was very high,” insists Félix Francés, also president of the Spanish Water Technology Platform.
What was proposed at the end of the 90s was the construction of a dam in the town of Cheste and the canalization of the entire route of the ramblas of Poyo and Pozalet, which extends for a few kilometers parallel to the mouth of both. Albufera Lake.
This project was basically rejected due to the opposition of the municipality of Cheste to the construction of a large dam. In addition, the direct connection with the Albufera meant filling it with sand in the medium term, due to the large load of sediment that these ravines carry during their floods.
All this stopped and only the final pipeline was carried out from Paiportaground zero of the current tragedy.
The project and its cost
Years later, at the beginning of this century, drafts of a European framework directive for flood risk management began to circulate, which were finally implemented in 2007. Technicians were familiar with Patricova’s analyses.
And following a flood that occurred years before and which mainly affected Pozalet, the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ) decided to carry out a pilot plan to apply the framework directive in this flood-prone area.
“My research group and I were involved in estimating the dangerousness and reducing the risks of the different alternatives proposed.” The option chosen for these ramblas consisted of reforestation and construction of protective microdams against erosion at the head of the basin.
On the other hand, in areas prone to flooding, it was proposed to place “rolling ponds” and “sacrifice zones” in the Poyo, connected by “green corridors”, which crossed non-urbanized agricultural spaces .
These runners would collect in an orderly manner a few 1,550 m3 per secondleading them partly to the existing Paiporta canal – with a maximum capacity of 800 m3/s -, while the remaining 750 m3/s would go to the new Turia canal, built after the historic floods of 1957.
“It was a solution acceptable for the environmentsocially accepted by municipalities and with maximum efficiency. It was the alternative,” defends Francés, one of the promoters of the initiative.
“Greenway” project from the Saleta ravine to the new bed of the Turia river, a work never before carried out.
“This plan cost approximately 150 million euros and generated a reduction
of the risk of 11 million euros per year, it therefore had a depreciation period of approximately 13 years. I don’t see anything like that cannot be profitable. “It was perfectly feasible from a public investment point of view.”
—Yet nothing was done for reasons of profitability?
—It was 150 million euros. Now tell me if that would be profitable, when reconstruction is going to cost infinitely more.
The crisis and the garden
In fact, two things happened. On the one hand, the project was postponed and when they wanted to carry it out, the economic crisis of 2008 arrived, which hit Spain a few years late.
“Investment in public works was reduced by 75% and with such a drastic budget reduction, it was difficult to do anything”, recalls the professor of hydraulic engineering. Thus, in 2011, the management of Mariano Rajoy He crippled the plan.
On the other hand, in 2018, the autonomous government of the Socialist Party Ximo Puig —with the support of Compromís and several Podemos deputies— approved an environmental law to protect the so-called Huerta Sur de Valencia.
Félix Francés emphasizes that the “green corridors” which would have connected the Ramblas to the Turia were compatible with this law. “Occupy of the orchard was low in percentage terms and for the greater good of protecting population, industry, infrastructure and the orchard itself from flooding.”
But, despite the fact that Therese Ribera She signed a favorable environmental impact statement ten years ago as secretary of state for climate change during the Zapatero era, in 2021. —I am already a minister— He also stopped the “canalization and drainage” works of the Poyo and Saleta ravines.
The argument then was that the project required a “new cost-benefit analysis”.
Actions planned in the Poyo ravine and its adjacent localities since 1994.
Thinking about the future
There are therefore different dates to locate the root of the disaster. But this will not change the more than 200 deaths and the thousands of people who lost their homes and all their belongings.
The hydraulic engineer, Master from the University of Colorado and doctor in Civil Engineering from the Polytechnic School of Valencia, calls on the National Flood Zone Mapping System to clarify that there are still thousands of places in danger throughout Spain and that if several elements are combined again it can happen again.
It therefore gives a series of recommendations. “We cannot tell people who live in such a place to leave their homes. The first thing is therefore to reduce the current risk with protective infrastructure; then, apply Patricova’s urban planning rules with greater means For Do not expand urban centers towards dangerous areasexcept in necessary and justified situations, because it makes no sense to ban everything.
“Flood risk forecasting systems must also be improved and information and education programs must be implemented for the population at risk. An informed population will reduce damage and loss of life,” defends -he.
Furthermore, he claims that the reconstruction process can be used to adapt the building, with measures already proposed such as “from the ground floor there is a direct access to an upper floor or on the roof” in places at risk.
As other of his colleagues also warn, hydrographic confederations should be able to make “hydrological forecasts” and not just collect information on flows in real time, as is now the case in many of them. them, like Júcar.
And finally, he emphasizes that “information must also circulate much better, without having to follow so many steps, with clearer emergency messages, focused on the specific areas that are going to be flooded.”
All these elements they failed on the night of October 29. “We face uncertainties,” recognizes Félix Francés, “but we must do everything we can to reduce the current risk, as required by common sense and the European directive.”
