A historical timemore cruel than the tragedy of Biescas (Huesca) and more destructive and deadly than Hurricane Milton, in the United States. There are no adjectives to define the caliber and scope of the Dana that has devastated a large part of the province of Valencia and that has also affected other areas of Albacete, Bajo Aragón or western Andalusia.
The worst cold drop of the centuryaccording to the State Meteorological Agency, has resulted in an unaffordable number of fatalities for a developed country. It has also volatilized a volume of infrastructure that is still impossible to quantify. Spain and the European Union, which understands the disaster as its own, have suddenly woken up to a reality that, although it was already trying to represent itself, has now done so with all its ferocity: the Dana of 2024 has catapulted into all conversations the already inescapable need to improve adversity prevention and management strategies, adapt urban planning models and increase investments in infrastructure that allow us to face the new reality marked by the unstoppable advance of climate change.
All expert voices agree in stating that only in this way, with a paradigm shift, will it be possible to face extreme weather events that, according to all forecasts, they are going to be more and more common and dangerous.
“The temperature of the atmosphere has risen 1.3 degrees above the pre-industrial era and this causes the water vapor to remain retained in it for longer. On the other hand, The steam expelled by the seas and oceans has grown by 9% due to the warming that these large bodies of water are experiencing as a consequence of climate change. These atmospheric factors make the precipitation much more powerful,” says Isabel Moreno, a meteorological physicist, who also warns that it is very likely that this type of phenomenon could occur again. “We do not know when or with what intensity because there are a multitude of local factors that are very difficult to predict, but if it has happened once, it can happen again,” he insists.
This last episode has been represented in the form of heavy rain that gained special intensity in the interior regions of Valencia (Plana de Utiel-Requena, Foya de Buñol-Chiva and La Serranía), where Almost 500 l/m2 were recorded in a few hoursthe same amount that rains in an entire year. This sudden alluvium quickly saturated the soils, generating in a short space of time significant floods in torrents, channels and boulevards that caused numerous ravines to overflow. Data from the Automatic Hydrological Information System (SAIH) of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) show that the flow of the Rambla del Poyo -formed by the union of the El Grande ravines, the Morica Cave and Chiva- It rose from 250 cubic meters per second to 2,000 in just two hoursa flow five times greater than that which the Ebro River usually discharges into the Mediterranean Sea. The avalanche of water descended at full speed, devastating the towns located downstream where, paradoxically, hardly any rainfall had been recorded.
The flooding of the Turia upon its arrival in the capital of Valencia found relief in its new channel and, although it reached peaks of 2,000 m3/second, it kept the city immune from the disaster.
The risk of building in flood zones
The severity of these episodes is usually increased by urban factors such as high occupation of the territory wave location of residential areas in easily flooded perimeters (river banks, ravines or ravines) that are dry most of the year, but tend to accumulate water from rain and overflow easily. Therefore, adapting flood management plans and stopping building in flood zones are revealed as the most urgent measures. to avoid physical and material damage that may produce this type of events in the future and also to create more resilient environments in future emergencies.
“It is not admissible to continue building residential buildings, services or communication infrastructures in flood-prone areas,” the Spanish Association of Climatology (AEC) points out. However, currently There are about 25,000 floodable kilometers in Spain in which nearly 2.7 million people liveaccording to data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition.
The Levante area It is one of the most exposedespecially the province of Valenciawhose occupation model presents important deficiencies derived from urban expansion. As shown in the Territorial Action Plan for Flood Risk Prevention of the Valencian Community (Patricova) Almost 600,000 inhabitants of the region reside in an area with possible flood risk and another 250,000 live in places that are less at risk but are not entirely exempt.
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