Two months after the DANA disaster in Valencia, the cleaning and debris removal work continues. And the number of fatalities continues to increase – now 224 – that should never have happened. The event was tremendous, due to its intensity, the extent of the affected territory, and the damage caused to infrastructure, equipment, agricultural fields, businesses, industries and homes. And the political confrontation continues over the attribution of blame, the actions necessary to clean up the area, the origin of the money invested after the event, the aid to families. A spectacle that embarrasses us as citizens, that angers those affected and that blurs the essence of democracy. It’s okay now. But the worst remains, the most expensive, the most lasting, what will be decisive for the future of the affected areas: reconstruction. And in this territorial planning will play a prominent role.
The DANA has revealed an incomprehensible and improper occupation of flood zones that has been allowed in our country since the sixties of the last century, with the aggravating factor that the worst has occurred in the democratic period when we have been providing ourselves with regulations that , in theory, prohibited the occupation of spaces with natural danger. And all this because the land has always been – and continues to be – an object of desire for private agents and public managers who have seen in this element of the natural environment a space for accelerated transformation and rapid enrichment beyond the limitations that could arise. introduce.
The housing occupancy data in preferential flow areas provided by elDiario.es, in its updated report on flood-prone Spain, are tremendous. 385,000 homes in areas of very high risk of flooding in our country, of which nearly 100,000 have been inaugurated in this century. All of this supports the idea that the public channel, and the river space that surrounds it, has been the object of little respect by real estate development and little surveillance by the public management of these areas.
The result is evident. We have occupied flood zones that must be acted upon, in some cases through evacuation. And this situation has been reached, it is becoming increasingly evident, due to non-compliance with existing laws (mainly soil, water, territorial planning and environmental impact). In the seventies of the last century, “return periods” were integrated into water regulations. In 1986, the public hydraulic domain and flood zones were legally defined. In 1995, the little appreciated Civil Protection Basic Flood Guidelines pointed out the need to develop risk mapping. The 1998 Land Law, enacted after the Biescas camping disaster, required land with proven natural risk to be classified as “non-developable”. A mandate never applied because the local scale resorted to the pretext of the lack of risk maps. And the “real estate boom” occurred (1998-2008), the period in the recent history of our country in which the occupation of flood zones, of spaces with natural risk in general, grew the most. In 2008, the solution to this ruse was found: the new Land Law forced the preparation of natural risk maps in urban planning processes. And this was ratified by the 2015 version of this law.
Furthermore, in some Autonomous Communities since 2000, maps, plans and laws have been developed for the use of territorial planning as a tool for reducing natural risk. For example, the PATRICOVA plan in the Valencian Community, a good legal document for the territorial management of flood risk. And despite all this, the occupation of flood-prone areas has not been stopped.
In Spain, the lack of territorial culture is manifested in the continued search for subterfuges and singular interpretations towards environmental regulations, when what is involved is carrying out urban transformations in areas of opportunity, such as the Mediterranean coast or the Canary Islands. Although the same thing is shown on the Cantabrian and Atlantic peninsular coasts. There are regulations to prevent the occupation of flood-prone areas, evident since the beginning of this century, the lack of review of urban plans and the lack of official flood risk maps until recently (Directive 60/2007 on floods) has made risk management through territorial planning is ineffective.
In Spain there are 4,756 municipalities (58.4% of the total existing municipalities in Spain) with planning in force prior to 2008 (Land Law that requires the preparation of risk maps) and of them 2,771 municipalities (34% of the total Spanish municipalities) with planning prior to the year 2000; that is, prior to the principles of sustainability (Rio de Janeiro 1992) and the objectives of the European Territorial Strategy (1999) to carry out sustainable territorial development. This should not be allowed in the current climate context in our country, in addition with a Climate Change Law of 2021, which requires this process to be taken into account in territorial planning.
For this reason, an urgent review of urban planning is necessary in all those municipalities with a high risk of flooding. Urban plans prior to 2010 should not be allowed in these high-risk territories. And especially, the processing of those urban projects that foresee the occupation of flood-prone spaces must be paralyzed. Likewise, it is essential that the misinformation that currently exists in the property purchase and sale processes be completely modified in order to indicate the degree of natural risk that exists in the area that is the subject of the transaction. The buyer must know the risk situation of the area where they are going to buy a home. To do this, existing official (state and regional) risk mapping viewers can be used. In the event that a home is located in a high-risk area and there is an express desire to purchase it, it is necessary for the buyer to sign a commitment to assume the existing risk for the purposes of possible subsequent compensation in the event of an extreme natural event. about said locality.
Royal Decree 665/2023, of July 18, which modifies the Regulation of the Hydraulic Public Domain, which includes precise indications on the limitations of use in flood-prone areas, must be strictly complied with. And the criterion for delimiting flood zones based on return periods (which has proven ineffective in safeguarding human life and even more so in the current climate context) will have to be completed with others based on historical, geomorphological and biogeographical aspects. . The important thing is to guarantee maximum safety for human life when mapping the natural risk existing in a territory.
The coming climate context is going to be even more adverse. Extreme weather events are going to increase, including DANAs. Hence the importance of having well-organized territories to achieve effective risk reduction, to reduce losses and avoid fatalities. If in the October DANA so much has been lost and so many people have died, it has been due to three factors: flash flooding of boulevards and ravines (El Poyo, as the most lethal example) due to record rains in hourly intensity; lack of timely warning to populations without risk education; and the reality of a river space irresponsibly occupied, irrationally invaded and without protection measures. A perfect cocktail for disaster. But like l’Horta Sud in Valencia there are dozens of areas with similar characteristics on the Spanish Mediterranean coast.
The DANA of last October is a warning that we must heed. But it occurs in a new moment of urban euphoria raised on outdated municipal urban plans, without sustainability criteria or adaptation to climate change. Things don’t look good. It is time for the administrations to take a heavy hand in prohibiting the occupation of flood-prone areas and the eviction of those occupied areas where there is a serious risk to human life. It is not a dish of good taste for politics. But it is what is necessary. It will require pedagogy, dialogue, cooperation between parties involved and a sufficient budget. If not, we will not have learned from the message received in the dramatic DANA in Valencia and in a short time we will return to regret another disaster.
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