In the first week of March 2025, Valencia was grappling with persistent heavy rains.

The meteorological agency (AEMET) issued orange alerts for intense rainfall across the wider Valenciana region. March is typically a dry month, yet up to 100 litres/m² of rain fell in just 12 hours.

Schools, sports fields and cemeteries were closed for safety, and public outdoor events have been prohibited. This comes as Valencia is still reeling from the catastrophic floods of October 2024, when exceptional rainfall turned rivers into deadly torrents, claiming over 220 lives; with nearly half of the victims trapped in homes or garages.

An investigation is underway to determine if and to what extent this tragedy could have been prevented, but the people of Valencia are not waiting quietly. Many are convinced that if a weather alert had been issued before the torrents turned violent, the disaster could have been avoided.

According to data from the Ministry for Ecological Transition & Demographic Challenge, Spain has more than 26,000km² of high flood-risk areas, home to approximately 2.7 million people. Of this number, 700,000 live in the highest-risk zones, as stated in a Greenpeace report compiling climate change-related risk data.

“We have the information on which areas are prone to flooding or have a higher risk, but that information is not binding; so how it is integrated into urban planning depends on local and regional regulations,” explains Elvira Jiménez, climate change adaptation campaigner at Greenpeace Spain.

In the Mediterranean basin, which is becoming increasingly arid and vulnerable to high-altitude isolated depressions (DANA - Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos) and floods, another problem is the false sense of security.

“It happens a lot in the Mediterranean region that we have areas that are prone to flooding, but most of the time they are dry. They have dry riverbeds inside towns and cities, which carry water only in the rainy season, and not necessarily in high volumes, and so it gives this false sense of security that we can just build something there because flooding seems a low risk…until it happens,” Jiménez adds.

Climate resilience

This is why Valencia is striving to implement new best practices within the broader València 2030 Climate Mission, which aims to make the city climate-neutral and resilient by 2030, explains Emilio Servera, European Projects Officer at València Clima i Energia, the municipal foundation of the City of Valencia working on climate change and energy transition.

“We are the third-largest city in Spain, with around 800,000 people, so we emit a lot of greenhouse gases, but we want to stop doing that. As a Mediterranean city, we are also very exposed to the effects of climate change, and we also want to adapt.

"We are already feeling it in the form of DANA, sea-level rise, tropical nights, and heatwaves with a growing number of deaths and other health issues,” Servera continues.

However, one of the major obstacles to this challenge is the lack of human and financial capital.

“Lack of staff in the municipality… But also, lack of budget, lack of money to execute all the projects that could be done in the city to adapt it,” says Servera.

Innovative strategies

This funding gap hampers the implementation of necessary measures, even when it is clear what actions should be taken. To address this challenge, Valencia is also participating in DISTENDER, a European project aimed at developing innovative strategies by integrating climate change adaptation and mitigation actions.

As a 'follower city', Valencia will learn from pilot case studies in Austria, the Dehesas and Montados (pastoral regions) of Spain and Portugal, Guimarães in Portugal, Turin in Italy, and the north-east Netherlands.

“There has been tremendous progress in five so-called core case studies,” explains Kasper Kok, assistant professor of earth system and global change at Wageningen University, a partner in the project. “This includes the implementation of multiple models for the core case areas - climate, water quality, heat, health and land use, but also the development of scenarios and strategies to combat climate change with stakeholders’ involvement.

"All activities have been carried out across all five case studies, leading to very specific information on climate change impacts under different future scenarios of climate change and socio-economic development,” Kok adds.

The challenge of disaster prevention and risk reduction is complex, requiring not just scientific insight but also overcoming resistance to change. A combined approach that integrates adaptation and mitigation strategies can effectively reduce disaster risk.

Adaptation strategies address climate change effects by adjusting the environment, while mitigation strategies focus on reducing the root causes of climate change, mainly by reducing emissions. Some measures can benefit both, but others may improve adaptation at the expense of mitigation, a phenomenon known as maladaptation.

Choosing the right strategy for each context is a challenge, which is why DISTENDER aims to provide a data-driven methodological framework to support decision-makers.

“The largest output of the project is an online decision support system, where users can assess the effects of numerous actions on selected aspects of their case study,” explains Kok.

Policy options

This tool will display different policy options and rank them based on their potential to mitigate climate change, enhance adaptation and generate additional co-benefits.

“Personally,” concludes Kok, “I think large floods pose the greatest risk. They come quickly, suddenly and sometimes unexpectedly, taking many lives.

"Weather will remain unpredictable, so preventing floods is very difficult.”

In the near future, early warning systems will help mitigate tragedies, and new technology can play a major role, but in the long run, experts agree, relocation will be necessary in some areas. This means managing the emotions of those at risk, educating them about environmental dangers, and overcoming the challenge of implementing long-term projects in a political landscape where cycles last only four-to-five years.

Courage will be needed, the courage to tell people to leave their homes and relocate to safer areas. Just like in Ontinyent, near Alicante, where a mayor took the decision to demolish an entire neighbourhood and relocate residents, after homes were flooded by Storm Gloria in 2019.

Unlike in Valencia, there were no fatalities in that neighbourhood. Today, instead of flooded houses, there is a perfectly floodable park.