"With the right investments, we can get out of this."

AmpostaThree weeks after the torrential rains that devastated the Baix Ebre and Montsià regions, Lluís Baiges still vividly remembers his farm transformed into a mud pit, littered with plant debris, greenhouse plastic sheeting, and collapsed metal structures. "We need two weeks of continuous work and more than forty people to try to recover the quarry that the water didn't wash away," he explains. In the greenhouses of Cultidelta—the family business he co-manages with his brother, specializing in the cultivation of native Mediterranean plants and horticultural and vegetable production—the mud marks are still visible. "The water came in like a tide and flooded some 60,000 square meters of greenhouses to a height of 80 cm. A week later, there was still stagnant water and trays of seedlings floating," he adds. The current swept away a significant portion of the crops. Among the plants they've been able to salvage, very few are usable for sale. "Most have been damaged by the mud itself, and those that haven't rotted from the excess moisture," he laments. "We're still in the process of assessing the damage, which is difficult to quantify, but I think we can estimate losses of around half a million euros, if we take into account the additional costs of repairing the damage, the loss of product, and the temporary halt in sales," he says.

His farm, located on the inner edge of the Ebro Delta plain, between Amposta and La Ràpita, suffered the double impact of the flash floods: on one side, the torrents that flow directly down from the Montsià mountain range drained away, and on the other, the Puertos ravine, which flows into the Ebro River. "It's a ravine that's ten kilometers away, but the water reached us through the secondary irrigation canal that we have right next to it, and it overflowed," he explains.

Meanwhile, Jaume Moya is trying to get things back up and running at the Torre de la Carrova farm, on the outskirts of Amposta. Located two kilometers from the mouth of the Galera ravine, it was completely flooded by more than a meter of water. Access to the farmhouse was impassable for several days, and some areas of the vegetable plots are still uneven pools where boxes and branches float. "I had planted cauliflower, artichokes, lettuce, tomato plants, and also fruit trees like pomegranate and olive trees. And a small chicken coop that didn't survive. The water ruined everything," he laments.

This already happened to him during torrential rains in 2000, and it happened again two years ago, but not with the ferocity of this time. "I hardly even consider assessing the damage, because I'm close to retirement; I don't think a solution will be found anytime soon for the infrastructure bottleneck that obstructs the ravine's flow into the river, such as the canal on the left bank of the Ebro and the C-12 highway. I work other leased land located in a different place for a while," he remarks with a certain resignation.

Government Plan

The Catalan government has announced a master plan of 27 million euros To address the problem of ravines in the Baix Ebre and Montsià regions, the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) has allocated €120,000 for cleaning operations. However, the farmers, having learned their lesson, view this with some skepticism, at least in the short term. "The infrastructure needs to be improved to close the canals when heavy rains are expected, to prevent them from overflowing and becoming an outlet for the water. And we need to open the debate about whether it's necessary to build a siphon to lower the irrigation canal below the Galera ravine and allow the water to flow freely into the river," one farmer commented.

Despite the blow, Baiges remains pragmatic: "With adequate investments from the Generalitat, the ACA, and the irrigation communities, we can move forward. But we must make investments commensurate with the new needs arising from this global crisis, because we must accept that perhaps more episodes like this will happen again. We must be prepared."