The Global Plan against Júcar floods in 2000 provided for the construction of three dams in the area affected by DANA to secure half of a territory that they considered uncontrolled against a flood. More than 24 years later, the Estubeny and Marquesado dams are outside the Government’s planning, which considered them to be of dubious viability, and there has been little progress in the processing of the environmental impact declaration for the Montesa dam, the only one that has achieved survive within the third cycle of Hydrological Planning of the Executive.
According to the planning for the year 2000, the surface not controlled by lamination reservoirs – which make it possible to reduce the force with which floods flow – from the foot of the Tous dams in the Júcar, Bellús in the Albaida and Forata in the Magro to The point of confluence with the Júcar was approximately 2,230 km2.
With the construction of these three dams, 246 km2 would be controlled with the Estubeny dam, 520 km2 with the Montesa dam and 300 km2 with the Marquesado dam, which represented 48% of the territory with serious risk of flooding.
The document from the then Ministry of the Environment showed its general preference for dams, regarding the conditioning of the channel, due to the problems of the existing tributaries downstream of Tous, mainly the Sellent, Albaida and Magro rivers.
This same week, the College of Civil Engineers, Canals and Ports made a call to carry out the proposed projects to avoid flooding and asked the administrations not to stop at the argument that the solution is expensive. On the other hand, environmental groups such as Acció Ecologista opposed its construction due to its environmental impact.
Few resources
In January 2023, the Ministry of Ecological Transition approved the new hydrological planning for the Júcar Basin. In it, with the Estubeny and Marquesado dams already eliminated, an investment of 223 million is planned for issues related to flood containment for the period 2022 and 2027 despite considering that adverse climate phenomena were going to increase in the coming years. years due to climate change. The current Hydrological Plan includes a total of 492 measures with a total budget of 2,185 million.
Ribera included in this third planning cycle a total of 32 measures to prevent flooding, compared to the 150 proposals for reducing pollution or the 59 dedicated to water governance, that is, it was not considered a priority issue by any means. allocation of resources (barely 10%), nor by number of measures.
Added to this lack of attention is that half of the items planned for recovery and review after floods and the management of their risks were left without financial allocation.
Among the items that ran out of money is, for example, attending to emergency works to repair affected infrastructure, including basic health and environmental infrastructure. Civil protection plans for health support actions, financial assistance, including legal assistance, as well as temporary relocation of the affected population. The promotion of flood insurance for people and property, including agricultural insurance. And, finally, the evaluation, analysis and diagnosis of the lessons learned from the management of flood events.
Paralysis since 2000
The document prepared by Ecological Transition, however, was the first to include the measures corresponding to floods since the planning corresponding to the second cycle – prepared by the Government of the Popular Party – did not include them because they corresponded to the Flood Risk Management Plan. .
According to the text of the document in force, the current plan is limited to collecting “in a summary manner the set of measures that are part of the Flood Risk Management Plan of the Júcar Hydrographic Demarcation of the second cycle”, that is, that in No additional proposals were added in the last revision.
Hydrological planning also includes twelve measures to reduce or mitigate the effect of floods (10 under the responsibility of the Generalitat Valenciana) for a total of 51.8 million euros.
The measures focus on actions in the province of Valencia in the following municipalities: Alcàsser, Alginet, Almussafes, Benifaiò, Beniparrell, Silla and Sollana, as well as in the Barranco dels Frares area that involves Burjassot, Godella, Rocafort and Valencia. In Castellón, it involves the municipalities of Aín (Barranco de Teulería) and Benlloc (Barranco de la Font). The Ministry of Ecological Transition has not yet presented on its website the monitoring report of the Flood Risk Management Plan corresponding to the years 2022 and 2023, but in 2021 it is already indicated that a large part of the planned measures have not been executed.
The EIB allocates 900 million to floods
The EIB is preparing an immediate response of 900 million to accelerate the deployment of existing initiatives and support the reconstruction of critical infrastructure to be carried out by regional authorities and public bodies in Spain, as was done in response to the floods in Central Europe last month of September. “The European Investment Bank has moved quickly to expedite financial support for the repair and reconstruction of homes, businesses and infrastructure. We must ensure that we build back better: with techniques adapted to the new reality, that resist and protect against climate shocks more frequent and intense” declared Nadia Calviño, president of the EIB.
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