Two 35-kilometre green corridors to serve as protection against flooding in Valencia

The regional government of Valencia (Generalitat) has announced a 150-million-euro budget for the creation of two anti-flood parks in the Albufera area. The initiative will have public-private financing, in addition to seeking EU funding.

The total cost is just an estimate for now, as the project would first need to be drawn up. It also largely depends on the facilities and infrastructure that will be included in the park and whether it will have shelters, pathways, game areas, trails, etc.

This is a complex task, which will be divided into different sections, each one built at a time yet to be determined.

One of the two parks - l'Horta Sud - will run with a main branch of 18.5 kilometres from the Albufera Natural Park to Picanya, with a second zone of 5.5 kilometres from the lake to Massanassa and Catarroja.

The second park will be an extension of the existing Turia park that crosses the city of Valencia along the old river bed up to the hill of La Vallesa. It will be 10.5 kilometres long. The green zone will form a 35-kilometre line extending over 1,500 hectares with the aim of protecting the affected areas from further flooding.

The park's objective is to absorb as much water as possible in any flooding event and protect nearby towns. The planting of some 100,000 trees, which will connect the two parks, will be included in the draft. The original project envisages that there will be some 100 kilometres of paths along the two extensions. To give you an idea, the surface area of this new macro-park will be as large as the Casa de Campo in Madrid (1,500 hectares) and will be ten times the size of the current Turia park.

The project has been developed in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team from the Universitat Politècnica de Valencia and the centre for environmental studies of the Mediterranean (CEAM). Forestry engineer Professor Eduardo Rojas is in charge of detailing the actions, for which he has borrowed inspiration from other cities such as Munich, Paris, New York and Vitoria. Another aim of the project is to provide Valencia's residents with a space for sports, leisure and outdoor activities.

The main objective, however, is to fix the weak spots of the metropolitan area and the banks of the Turia and Poyo rivers. General director of the Generalitat's environmental department Raúl Mérida Gordillo alluded to the possibility of recovering abandoned crop fields and giving them to companies, cooperatives and schools. The aim is for each of them to have their own gardens.

President of the Generalitat Carlos Mazón also announced the possibility of building "a memorial for the victims" of the flood disasters last autumn, "if Valencia's society so wishes".