A technical panel made up of academic experts, affected residents and representatives of the City Council and the Generalitat has begun working this Wednesday in Alcanar to look for preventive solutions to the effects of the downpours that the municipality has been suffering on a recurring basis in recent years.
According to the mayor, Joan Roig, this is a "pioneering" initiative in the territory and in Catalonia that wants to pave the way when it comes to facing the problems that climate change is accentuating.
In the first meeting, the municipal government has presented several projects to mitigate the effects of the downpours.
Roig, however, has acknowledged that they will also study the possibility of expropriating and demolishing properties that are located in the channels of the ravines.
Three episodes of practically consecutive torrential rains in the last five years - October 2018, September 2021 and September 2023 - have turned the municipality of Alcanar into an "epicenter of climate change in Catalonia", according to Roig.
Given the confirmation that "reactive" actions only allow damage to be "repaired", but not avoided, the City Council includes the study of "preventive" means to "reduce the risk to property and people."
This is the great objective of the technical table, which must study and understand how floods occur in the municipality, how the water flows down the ravines from the Montsià mountain range, affecting the urbanized areas closest to the sea. All of this should serve to "articulate actions that help avoid the catastrophe", present measures that allow us to gain resilience in the face of downpours.
Along with the representatives of the municipal government, the doctors in architecture from the UPC, Roger Sauquet and Isabel Castiñeira, are part of the technical table; the expert in climate change and doctor in the Environment, Oriol Bassa; the doctor in Geology from the UB, Álvaro Arasa; the territorial head of the ACA, Ignasi Reques; the head of Civil Protection in Terres de l'Ebre, Rafa Prades; the representative of the Bombers in Terres de l'Ebre, Jordi Castellví; the municipal architect, Maria José Forcada, as well as a representation of neighbors from the most affected areas.
The council has presented the projects it has underway to stop these episodes, but assures that it is not giving up any type of measure. Included, as "possible solutions, not definitive", expropriations and debris of buildings or structures built in flood-prone channels or spaces.
"All scenarios will be put on the table: we do not rule out anything," Roig assured. "We must open our minds," he insisted, recalling the case of Sallent, where the Generalitat compensated 140 families to abandon the houses in a neighborhood built on an old mining exploitation due to the risk of collapse.
The analysis of the effects of the last three episodes has made it possible to detect, mainly, three "hot zones" in the municipality. The most conflictive, says Roig, is that of the Jan Fund, where the low level of the land has not allowed any solution to be found.
In the Llop ravine, in the area of the Els Alfacs campsite, urbanization within the ravine itself is a major problem. The council is committed to the specific diversion of the direction of water, but the option of carrying out expropriations has also been studied.
Action will also be taken in the Les Cases ravine, which will uncover and renature the final section, which currently occupies a square, a children's playground and the promenade. The Councilor for Urban Planning, Maribel Garriga, has explained that one of the main actions in the urban area of Alcanar will be the construction of a new stormwater network that will allow water to be drained from the lower part where the schools are located.
