"With DANA everything failed"

BarcelonaThe natural and human-caused disaster caused by the DANA (High Water Flood) in the Valencian Community has been one of the hardest moments experienced in recent years in the state. More than 200 people have died, and towns, streets, and schools are still struggling to return to normal after being swept away by the mud. Now, half a year later, the management of the catastrophe has been taken to court and continues to have a profound impact on the day-to-day politics of Valencia and the state. Could scientific knowledge—properly applied and timely—have been able to prevent or reduce the human and structural damage caused by the flood? This is one of the questions that geographer Francesca Segura and geologist Jordi Coromina attempted to answer at the conference this Tuesday. Science to stop natural disasters, organized by the Institute of Catalan Studies (IEC) and the ARA.

Although the event, led by the deputy director of the ARA, Ignasi Aragay, was intended to reflect on the role of science and technology in halting the effects of the environmental crisis, it was inevitable that the conversation soon turned to the prevention and management of DANA in the Valencian Country.

"Rainstorms and river overflows are a natural process that has been happening for millions of years and will continue to happen, no matter how much it scares us," warned Coromina. The geologist explained that we can now know with relative accuracy the frequency of the downpours that affect us in our Mediterranean basin (two every 30 or 40 years), their magnitude and also the probability that they will affect a floodable area. "Taking this into account, science can help reduce the risk." But with DANA, neither prevention nor alerts worked.

"So, with DANA in the Valencian Country... Did everything fail?" Aragay asked. "Everything failed because there was a lot of information available to the public that was constantly updated, but the CECOPI [emergency coordination center] wasn't set up. If you're monitoring and you get the information, you can react, but if it's still being set up, you have no room to do anything," criticized Segura, a canyon expert.

The geographer has defended that the structural measures (especially the reservoirs) and the emergency plans "were there and were planned", but that "the alerts were given when people were already drowning": "With an alert given early in the morning, lives could have been saved. the state of the river. Flood management cannot be carried out based on the river flow because it can double in half an hour." In this sense, Segura has recalled that during the DANA the amount of water that descended the Poyo ravine was up to five times greater than the usual flow of the Ebro River.

We are paying for the misdeeds of the 20th century

Beyond the management errors in the Valencian Country, the two IEC members brought to the table a more widespread problem: the measures that at this point offer us a sense of security may not be as effective as we think. "We are paying for the misdeeds of the 20th century," Segura lamented, while Corominas noted that many people feel safe because they live near a place with major river canalizations, but when it comes down to it, the canals built 40 years ago, with the knowledge and techniques of that time, may not prevent flooding. "It's not because the climate has changed, but because we have increased the area of urbanized land and because the data on flood zones from half a century ago were not as concrete as those we have today," the geologist insisted. For all these reasons, the two experts insist on the need to educate citizens on how to act in the event of heavy downpours.

Regarding the possible judicial consequences of the mismanagement of the DANA, Segura was less than optimistic: "I have been able to see all the documentation of the Tous flood of 1982 and realize the manipulation that some scientists went to in order to defend certain interests. Now with the DANA, the judge is being very upright. She will do anything to defend personal and political interests."