Spain is rushing to reconstruct areas devastated by deadly floods last month, but experts have urged a rethink of development by moving buildings from vulnerable areas.
The worst floods to hit Spain in decades killed at least 230 people on October 29, covered towns with mud and rubble, destroyed bridges, roads and railway lines and submerged cars, mainly in the eastern region of Valencia.
According to a report by Spain’s Supreme Council of Colleges of Architects, “the level of destruction and ruin was historic” in the Valencia region, where around 80 towns were hit by heavy rainfall.
The reconstruction must be carried out “with empathy, technical rigor and a lot of responsibility,” President Marta Vall-Llossera said.
“As global warming makes meteorological phenomena more intense and frequent, architecture will play an important role,” she told AFP.
“We will have to build differently,” she added, recommending a return to “the traditional, compact Mediterranean city.”
In Spain’s third-largest city, Valencia, the regional capital, the land has become increasingly built-up, making it more vulnerable to flooding as concrete prevents the ground from absorbing water.
In the Valencia suburb of Paiporta, the epicenter of the disaster, roads quickly turned into mudslides that swept away everything in their path.
“We must try to renaturalize cities, reduce the use of cars, make the cobblestones less hard and more permeable and better able to withstand the intense heat and heavy rain,” Vall-Llossera said.
– ‘Forced expropriation’ –
A flood risk prevention plan was adopted in the Valencia region in 2003, but it is not binding and has no “retroactive effect”, says Maria Jesus Romero Aloy, an expert in urban planning law at the Polytechnic University of Valencia.
Valencia covers just five percent of Spain’s territory at risk of flooding, but has seen 20 percent of the country’s heavy rainfall recorded in the past decade, according to the plan.
The greatest risk of flooding is concentrated in 12 percent of the region – where the popular seaside resort of Benidorm is located – and affects 600,000 people.
In this area, authorities recommend that houses have watertight windows and an internal staircase with access to the roof so that they can escape flash flooding.
But Romero Aloy said there is a need for “a reconsideration of the territorial model and consideration of the removal of buildings or installations at high risk” of flooding.
Property owners are currently allowed to rebuild on flooded land, even in a risk zone.
The only way to prevent this is through a ‘forced expropriation’, as happened in 2019 in Onteniente, a municipality about 85 kilometers south of Valencia.
There, “a neighborhood was eliminated” and turned into a floodway, a channel reserved for the passage of floodwaters, Romero Aloy said.
– ‘Natural barriers’ –
However, mayors are “reluctant to expropriation” because it is a “complicated political decision”, especially when the country faces a housing shortage, she added.
But a month after the floods, “there is a growing awareness among decision makers,” said Federico Jesus Bonet Zapater, an expert in civil engineering, canals and ports who advises the Valencia regional government.
“Projects to build dams or divert canals, which have been on the table for some time, will finally be studied,” he added.
Rafael Delgado Artes, an expert in regional planning and risk prevention, recommends creating “natural barriers” such as forests to minimize flood damage and “artificial riverbeds to divert rivers away from city centers.”
In central Valencia, which was spared in October’s disaster, the river that flows through the city was diverted after devastating floods in 1957 and a popular city park stands in its place.
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