The Council of Ministers, on the proposal of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge and the Ministry of the Interior, has today approved two royal decrees that determine, on the one hand, the flood risk management plans (PGRI) of the intercommunity demarcations of the Western Cantabrian, Guadalquivir, Segura, Júcar and the Spanish part of the hydrographic demarcations of Mi｟｠ -Sil, Duero, Tajo, Guadiana, Ebro, Ceuta and Melilla, and, on the other hand, of the hydrographic demarcation.
These plans are a key tool for planning and reducing the risk of flooding over the next 6 years. Therefore, they include measures that consider all phases of the risk management, prevention, protection, preparedness and recovery cycle. Its elaboration has taken into account the involvement of all administrations, and of society, which must be part of the whole process and be informed of the risk that affects them and of what they can do to reduce it.
The PGRI delves especially into studying the impact of climate change to prepare for its worst impacts, according to the Floods Directive and the Climate Change and Energy Transition Act. For this reason, the impact that climate change can cause in the Areas of Significant Potential Flood Risk (ARPSI) designated in the plans has been analyzed.
RISK PERCEPTION AND ADAPTATION
On the other hand, improving public awareness in flood preparedness, increasing risk perception and adopting self-protection strategies are essential in order to successfully implement the plans. Therefore, one of the most important measures planned in this cycle is the elaboration and implementation of a National Strategy for Flood Risk Communication and Adaptation to Climate Change.
Thus, the PGRI involve the consolidation of the adaptation programs to the flood risk, and include the development of specific programs for the increase of resilience and adaptation to the flood risk in the sectors or territorial areas most severely affected through real aid decrees such as those approved for various municipalities of the Campo de Cartagena (Royal Decree 1158/2020), the middle stretch of the Ebro and tributaries (Royal Decree 731/2022) and the low plain of the Segura River (Royal Decree 786/2022).
IMPROVEMENT OF PREDICTION AND WARNING SYSTEMS
In this second cycle, it is planned to implement two tools provided for in the Law on the National Civil Protection System, the National Civil Protection Information Network (Law 17/2015) in order to interconnect all the data and information necessary to ensure effective responses to the emergency between the competent Public Administrations, and the National Alert Network. Through this system, emergency notices will be communicated to the competent civil protection authorities and meteorological and hydrological alerts so that essential public services and citizens are informed of any threat.
The PGRI also foresees an investment of more than 100 million euros for the modernization and optimization of control networks, the increase of measurement points and the development of computer tools to help decision making in a situation of compromise.
NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS
The new flood risk management plans also promote the implementation of measures that increase river space, habitat recovery, creation of flood plains and the removal or elimination of obsolete or poorly functioning protection works, all in coordination with hydrological planning and the protection of habitats and species.
In particular, more than 100 new projects are expected to be implemented, amounting to approximately €570 million, representing 30% of the investment.
FLOOD PROTECTION WORKS
At the same time, it also includes the implementation of structural actions that reduce the dangerousness of specific forms in generally urban areas or that have an impact on infrastructures that affect the safety of people, combined with other management actions and supported by cost-benefit studies that justify the viability of the selected alternative. It is planned to implement, in a first phase of priority actions that already have favourable cost-benefit studies published in these plans, to which will be added the actions that are being analyzed and developed during this cycle, with a total investment estimated at about 600 million euros.
SECOND CYCLE GRI BUDGET
The investment foreseen in the second cycle in the plans that are approved today is more than 2.1 billion euros for intercommunity demarcations, to which we must add the 109 foreseen in the plan of the demarcation of Galicia and Costa, which means an increase of more than double the budget of the first cycle plans.
A more comprehensive summary of the content of these plans can be found on the MITECO website.