I was born in Valencia and live nearby. As all of you may know by now, the "Southern Plan" has worked as designed on the huge last week floods (29/10/2024), which happened on the southern cities to Valencia due to other water ways, but the city was saved by this new river path. Sadly, there were still pending works, fatally delayed by decades, which could have saved all the flooded area. We are still counting dead people (as of 5/11/2024) and for sure have ahead a very long path ahead for recovery and these events will never been forgotten. I hope these events trigger the necessary works to protect low lying areas at the end of other water paths, as the "Barranco de Poyo" and the Magro river. The diverted Turia river is no longer a treat to Valencia (BTW, after 1957 there have been several times the new river path took large amounts of water, close to what we have seen last week, so it had already saved Valencia from disaster)
This is precisely the news story I have been searching for. Thank you both for the video and the comment. As soon as the news focused on where the floods were most severe in impact, I wondered what kind of mitigation was done when they moved the Turia - biodiversity, swales, ponds, diversions, etc. The worst of the damage seems to be a direct result of the "southern solution" being an incomplete solution. Politically, it's too easy to defer important infrastructure investments. I have not seen any news coverage in the past week that discussed this as a significant contributing factor to this tragedy. I plan to move to Valencia next year, and I hope they are able to get some smart solutions implemented.
I live in the north of Valencia, that plan saved my village and Valencia city. In 1957 my village had not this luck so Thanks to the people who designed it and made it possible.
I Hitched a ride out of the disaster zone once I had been dropped off with my wife by the UME. As we crossed the River heading towards AV. Ausias March I noted to my my wife that the City of Valencia had been saved by Franco again. We got set down near La Fe "my wife needed treatment" and everything seemed normal. People out jogging. It's crazy what happened just a few KMs away whilst they were sleeping. I will never forget the horrors of that night. DEP to all of those who were'nt as lucky as me.
@@MassiveChetBakerFan someone can consider themselves to be from a city without having been born there, you do not know how many years paddington has lived in bristol, nor know their emotional connection to the city, yet you assume and correct their grammar just because of their country of origin. I am an english woman who has lived in Barcelona for 10 years, more time than i have spent in any english county, let alone city, in another 10 years, I'll have spent more time here than in england as a whole. This is my home, aquesta ciutat és casa meva, soc barcelonina, I am from Barcelona.
You have, finally, travelled further than the extreme south west of England. What a revelation. Making for a brilliant, erudite & compelling product. Thanks for your efforts & time, in sharing your views, literal and littoral.
@@PedestrianDiversions Of course, I was addressing your ‘YT persona’, rather than assessing your ‘no doubt’ multifaceted life before or after. Even, ‘up’ or ‘down’; be that Durdham, Clifton or even Downend. Love your work; keep it up.
I am from Valencia I have never ear such a good explanation, you have to do a video after the dissaster, to explain how the river save valencia, now that every one is interested
This is a great video that definitely needs to be revisited and updated with the catastrophic DANA that just recently hit the province of Valencia. Yes, the capital city was spared, so the ugly infraestructure did its job well for the city, but several generations of corruption and property speculation saw the construction of sprawling towns between the new Turia diversion and the Albufera lagoon. A recipe for disaster now laid bare, but too late to solve. I recommend the two following videos as the best explanation of what has happened: Isaac Moreno Gallo’s “Geografía de una Inundación” showing the decades long badly planned growth of these towns outside the capital, and El Confidencial’s “Así se inundó Valencia” on the catastrophe itself.
@@alexandrejuve1305 you're in luck, cos I have no intention of making an update. I don't think it would be appropriate as a non-local who doesn't speak the languages. it was one thing for 1957 where I had 60 years of secondary sources and historical remove but I cannot do justice to contemporary events. thanks to Natalia for the recommendations of local coverage
As you may know by now the new river bed saved Valencia on October 29th 2024 of a worse flood disaster than 1957. You could do a small update on this video. I lived my whole life looking at this ugly 60’s engineering work outside our city but the credit to saving hundreds if not thousands of lives and billions of Euros in material damages goes to it. Once in over 50 years, but it has fulfilled its role properly.
It did work. Valencia city was pretty much saved, but problems arose with other courses of water, extensively urbanized like Paiporta and Catarroja wich are litterally all over the riverbeds.
Welcome back! I was getting worried but now I understand the absence. Must have taken a quite a while to get to Valencia by bus. (But he still can't make it out to Chipping Sodbury...)
@@PedestrianDiversions Hatters (tragically sometimes "mad") in Winterbourne and Sodbury (well there must have been in Sodbury since there is a Hatters' Lane). Yate is interesting as a planned New Town development in the sixties, complete with pedestrianised shopping centre and "modern" sculpture. If you do think of exploring the topic of Valencia more then you might be interested in "Sails and Winds" by Michael Eaude. I read it in preparation for a visit and it was illuminating. Thanks for all the articles - do keep them coming even if they are all from Somerset or Spain - and Merry Christmas!
As a Valencian I enjoyed a lot all the data on this video. After the recent floods in this area, there are still arguments about the paper of the New Turia, or South Plan. It would be interesting to make a new video in depth with the aftermath of this catastrophe.
The Guadalquivir River in Sevilla was also shifted to the west. The old channel is still there but is effectively a lake behind a flood barrage that also allows access to the port. Sevilla is an inland city but the river is more substantial and its the only inland port in Spain. The river above Sevilla is mostly unnavigable.
In Cordoba the Guadalquivir sits in a massive channel, which relatively recently has been allowed to re-naturalise. I think Cordoba would fare well with a rise in river level.
Fantastic video as always. Thanks for the hard work that must have gone into it. I have very fond memories of a free Bjork concert outside the Ciudad de Las Artes y Las Ciencias when I studied in Valencia in the early 2000s. People climbed up the tree-like bridge supports to sit in the cradles for a better view and I was impressed that the lovely pond area had no discarded beer cups or drunk people in it in after the concert, in contrast to my expectations of what it would have looked like were it England. Loved the whole Turia area.
The southern plan was not an imposition of the Franco regime. On the contrary, the local authorities were the ones who wanted an ambitious project. Franco's government wanted to invest as little as possible. The mayor put pressure on the government and even criticized Franco publicly on this issue. In the end the government was forced to invest in the most ambitious plan in order not to be exposed, but in return the mayor was forced to resign and the government made the city pay dearly for it. The diversion has remained a dry channel because there are reservoirs upstream that prevent water from reaching the river except in times of heavy rains that usually occur mainly in autumn-winter. There have been demands for the new southern channel to be a river in practice and to flow into the sea and allow an ecological flow to carry the necessary sediment to prevent erosion of the beaches south of the city. The southern plan not only served to protect the city from the risk of floods that have been occurring for centuries, but also served to make a ring road that prevented a lot of traffic through the urban area of the city, especially transport of goods to and from the port. If we add to this the urban park that crosses the city, the quality of life took a huge leap. In general, the benefits outweigh the harms. 19:32 Yes there have been even heavier rains in times after 1957. For example in 1982 and 1986. The work therefore seems to have been successful in preventing flooding.
Excellent. Thanls for this. I live in Bristol now but lived in Valencia for a year from 2001 to 2002. I love the place. Calatrava is a genius and the city just had a lovely feel to it. People are out every evening and it's welcoming. I will have to go back there at some point.
Very interesting video, thank you very much! Now it’s even more interesting, guess if the river wouldn’t have been displaced, today the tragedy of the recent apocalyptic flooding in Valencia could cause many more victims and bigger destructions
@@eng3d Lo que dices no es cierto. El Turia no se desbordó ni regresó a su antiguo cauce. Las inundaciones recientes las causaron otros cuerpos de agua, concretamente el Barranco del Poyo. Valencia capital se salvó gracias al desvío del Turia.
you can't imagine Valencia with a big river running through it. I'm from there and when I was a child I used to go down to play in the riverbed, there was only a stream that sometimes didn't even carry water. It wasn't a very healthy place, so creating a big park was a great idea.
The project saved Valencia from the flash flood of 10/2024, but everything south of it got swamped, and the 5000m3 capacity was not enough to prevent this.
Worst part is that it was never tested until now and since everyone took it for granted many industries and towns grew to the south of Valencia next to the new Turia. Those housing complexes were literally in a red zone just waiting for another flash flood 😢
El Turia no ha sido la causa del desastre. Las ciudades afectadas al sur de la ciudad están atravesadas por un barranco, que ha sido el desbordado, que no está lo suficientemente protegido y proporcionado. El nuevo cauce del Turia ha funcionado perfectamente, tal y como se esperaba cuando se diseñó. El barranco también ha tenido planes para adecuarlo pero la presión de ecologistas lo ha impedido.
Flooding south of Valencia wasn’t caused by Turia, it was by another rivers located south that don’t have enough flooding management systems. The diversion of the river saved Valencia and also prevented that the flooding at south of being worse
@@daniloosorio3400 Esto es interesante. ¿Es esta quizás la razón por la que las autoridades no dieron suficientes advertencias, porque pensaban que el nuevo canal Turia era suficiente?
@@daniloosorio3400It was caused by cloud seeding and weather modification. Baraka the Minister of equipment and water in Morocco announced that Morocco has conducted 70 cloud seeding operations in 2024, which has had a catastrophic impact on Spain. The Spanish goberment also do their own SAI, as they signed the Paris Agreement. North Carolina and Florida have also been under attack by their own DoD. SAIs are only permitted by the country of origin, in the country of origin. However, scientists have warned about the knock-on effects in neighboring countries. So the bans on SAIs in Tennessee and Idaho are irrelevant. It's no wonder that the people from Valencia, threw mud at King Phillipe and Sanchez. They would have thrown something much harder, if they all knew the truth.
You won't be surprised that I was drawn to your video by tragic recent events. You wisely sat on the fence instead of passing judgement as a conclusion. As an architect who used to lecture in urbanism, I remembered that they re-routed the old river course and planted a park in it's stead. And its easy to blithely suggest that the scheme failed, I did wonder whether they had ability to re-route flood water down the old River Turia channel to half the flow in the new one but I'm sure you would have mentioned if they had done. And whether that would have done much good or not is just a guess right now. After devastating floods (New Orleans) there is a common mantra - that the flood defences saved the rich suburbs but condemned the poor ones - and I can see that that might happen now, even in my town of Doncaster they said the town centre was saved while the dirt poor townships further north were sunk when the beck burst its banks (and yet wasn't diverted into the River Don). It looks as though there was poor town planning and buildings were built where they shouldn't have been in Valencia, though when you have an area called Torrent, it seems the writing is on the wall. Did the new southern river swamp the entire area between it and the 'Barancs' (streams?) that run through Torrent?? Time will tell if most of the dead were in cars or in their homes or elsewhere - but evidently flanking the new Storm Drain with motorways seems stupid in 20:20 HINDSIGHT, in backward Fascist Spain in the 1960s, I don't suppose much of the population actually drove cars at all and the leitmotif of the 2024 floods is the cars tossed as into a toybox. So how to rebuild Valencia, and where to do it? Oh and btw. Valencia isn't the only Spanish city where they re-directed the river around the city ... Seville springs to mind and Malaga now has a storm drain for a river too. Perhaps it is too easy to do this re-engineering in a country where the rivers are reduced to piddles most of the time and look such a scrubby mess - whereas as you mention, it would be unthinkable in Bristol, London or Paris, easier to do physically and psychologically too.
Well, now we know that by diverting the river they saved the city of Valencia, but they left out the surrounding towns, and carried on building in the areas that would get flooded in a disaster...which has now happened, with a death toll of 214+.
Spectacular City, although in my memory it was a lot busier and too hot to walk about ... looks like you had the perfect opportunity to explore. Well done, great video. 👏😀
It was very busy... Oxford-Street-the-week-before-Christmas busy at times. But I tend to be squeamish sticking camera in people's faces so I end up with footage that looks quieter than it generally is/was. Not too hot in Nov
Here in Athens things are very similar. We've turned what used to be a swamp into part of the city, due to diverting the flow of our 2 rivers Kifisos and Ilissos and they stopped flooding the swamp. Now Athens is going to have many problems if something like what happened there happens here...
Excellent work; should be shown in every school. As a landscape Architect, we are of course strong advocates of green spaces with trees but the madness of replacing nature with roads must be exposed.
As a tourist I enjoyed the Turia parks very much 2 years ago. And due to the recent floodings elsewhere in Valencia province your video became very relevant.
Very informative. I knew the outline but the detail was interesting. A particularly prophetic statement about the rerouting never having been really tested ! Very sad for the people of Southern Valencia. Its a great City
As the one who moved to Valencia and accidentally rented my first apartment just about 230m from the Turia park, I may undoubtedly say that it happened to become one of the most important reasons that made me fall in love with Valencia. Living next to this park is such a blessing - there's a 5 km-long jogging lane with the km signs marking every 100 m; there are dog walking cages and agility training courses, there is a million yoga, boxing, calistenics, gymnastics, etc. classes going on there everyday; there are so many thematic meetups of a hundred various subjects; sports groups for kids on 5 stadiums for different types of sports, and a tremendous walking and chilling spaces that we wholeheartedly loved. The only downside of the park is "culture diversity bringers" - illegal immigrants from Africa and Middle East... they steal bikes and e-scooters, drag telephones and jewelry from people, and also (it's an unpopular thing to say out loud) sexually harass and even rape ladies walking there alone in the evenings... But overall - OH YES, TURIA PARK IS JUST FABULOUS!
@@rafarequeni822 Go walk across Turia park after 10 PM, you deversity-brainwashed liberal idiot. Go pay more taxes into the prosperous Spanish economy than me - then say bullshit like this.
Lovely video. Good sources, good investigation, nice to travel here to film and discover things on your own. I really enjoyed it and almost cried (of sheer joy) at some points. If I had to mention something, I won't say the new river bed hadn't been tested yet, we have that kind of atmospheric anomalies called here DANA or gota freda (cold front) annually. I'm writing this days after a massive flood killing hundreds in cities next to Valencia, while the new river was close to overflow and Valencia itself remained untouched.
@@lauraanndoig9703 A good job in that it saved the City itself but it looks like the "new" river could not contain the amount of water thrown at it and consequently it has spilled it out onto the areas and people South of the City
@@iangibson-h5h It did not spill on to the South and it was NOT the cause of the devastation. It worked well and gathered all the water that came from ravines that spilled further south, redirecting the excess water to the sea and saving the city from being pulled into the catastrophe. More water management measures are needed in those ravines (rambla del poyo, rambla de la saleta) that were discarded, among other measures, but the new course was a good thing.
@@iangibson-h5h What has flooded the towns south of Valencia has not been the Turia River... that has been well contained by the southern plan. What has flooded has been the Rambla del Poyo. (=Rambla, Ravine through which the waters run after torrential rains). In the southern plan it was planned that this ravine would be protected with water lamination dams and channelled... but the cost of the works and the fact that in recent decades, the "ecologists" have been opposing the construction of reservoirs (They made fun of F. Franco calling him "Paco Frog" for his obsession with building reservoirs, without admitting that thanks to that we have been saved from many droughts/floods); together with their opposition (the ecologist) to clearing the river beds of reeds and wood, has caused the obstructions of the drainage systems to increase the impact of the floods.
Brilliant and thoroughly enjoyable. As usual your humour is on point and drier than the Turia out of rainy season. I was hoping you would mention how successful the river move has been in its original purpose, but when you dropped the bomb that it had never been tested, I must admit to being disappointed. Seeing floods flow dynamically down ancient Ramblas is really rather satisfying. Equally concerning is the apparent loss of the famous Valencian Orange. Still, I am sure global warming will have a part to play in the future. So I cannot wait for your extended season on the death of the Mekong - 5 Countries, 13 dams and the slow demise of one of the worlds great rivers. Please don't actually visit SE Asia, you won't be allowed back in one piece. But in depth analyses like yours are treasures. Thanks.
The floods in Spain are caused by deforestation. Three thousand years ago all of southern Europe was covered in dense forest which only survives on the Azores. Gradually, humans removed the forest and now there is nothing to prevent the flood waters rushing downstream and flooding cities and farmland. If Spain reforests the catchment areas, the floods will be minimised.
I wonder if the rerouting of the Turia river and subsequent developments and planning decisions played any negative role in the disastrous floods of 2024 in Valencia and how they compare with the 1957 inundation
Funnily enough, first thing I thought when news reports told about November floods was, “How is this possible if Valencia was founded by the Romans and the were absolute masters of 'water engineering'?” You have solved the question: the Roman part was never flooded. Urbanism in Spain is chaotic and corrupted.
Twenty years ago I was near Barcelona and the outflows of rivers had cars swept along in them. I passed the coast in a boat and literally ran over a full size tree that had been swept out to sea. It's the mountains inland that feed sudden accumulations of rainwater.
in the wake of the recent flooding, i found your video. I found it sad that in the 1957 floods, least than 100 peoples lost their lives and the best way to divert the river , made in time , so that now, there's more than twice the number of victims.
I suspect the official figure from 1957 is much lower than reality as the shanty town occupants would have been disproportionately likely to be undocumented. still, regardless, 2024's high toll is very sad and tragic indeed
The diversion was not the cause of more deaths. It gathered the water from ravines that spilled down south and diverted the water to the sea, saving the city. If it had not existed, the flooding would have covered a wider area and the damage would have been even worse. The alerts were mismanaged and more water management systems are needed near the ramblas (poyo, saleta) that spilled and that were rejected, but this saved us from even worse devastation.
Superb as always. I love your videos even if they aren’t about Bristol. I no longer live in Bristol having moved away in the early 80s. Nevertheless, I am proud to be a Bristolian. However, I have noted that in the past 40 odd years management of the city appears to have been lamentable I am saddened by this.
yes the big roads along the sides are a bit unfortunate. I suppose the riverbed elevation change means the park would never flow seamlessly into the city but they do feel like a big barrier to it in places
Ejemplo perfecto de que lo que diga un tipo desde su casa no tiene validez alguna, gente más capacitada y con más experiencia, es la que desvío el río en el 57, gracias a eso se han salvado vidas. En serio no os creáis lo que os cuentan aquí. Las cosas no se hacen por capricho. Amad vuestro país o región.
Great video, again. We were in Valencia for October half term for a short break and found out about the river removal during. An interesting story and a great feature for people of the city to now enjoy. We hired bikes and it's very strange to cycle under the dry bridges....we did wonder how such a scheme would play out in London. I wonder if it will all be worth it when proper rainfall gives it its first test...let's hope it works and prevents a flood as planned. Thanks for your work...however far afield you go. Cheers
There’s a disused waterway, an old meander of the Meuse, in Liege 🇧🇪. It WAS converted in to an urban roadway, but now they’re adding a tram! Apparently, the 60s road project was used as an excuse to close the city’s extensive tram system, with the promise of a metro to replace them. The metro never arrived…
Most of coastal Spain has been devastated by uncontrolable construction with no lack whatsoever to preventing disasters like this one. I live on the southern coast and construction happens beside rivers, on top of them and only a few yards away from the sea. Population has been growing at a rate that has left most cities unsustainable of essentials. My prayers and support to Valencia. It can happen to any over built city on coastal Spain.
I hope you will go back and show us exactly how the old city and the park have done with the current floods 2024. We are all watching with horror the floods in the area all around the city. The river park through Valencia city is fantastic, is it saved or destroyed.
The city did not flood at all. The river diversion channel worked as designed. the flooding was South of the city and in the interior where the massive rains fell that were flooded.
What has flooded the towns south of Valencia has not been the Turia River... that has been well contained by the southern plan. What has flooded has been the Rambla del Poyo. (=Rambla, Ravine through which the waters run after torrential rains). In the southern plan it was planned that this ravine would be protected with water lamination dams and channelled... but the cost of the works and the fact that in recent decades, the "ecologists" have been opposing the construction of reservoirs (They made fun of F. Franco calling him "Paco Frog" for his obsession with building reservoirs, without admitting that thanks to that we have been saved from many droughts/floods); together with their opposition (the ecologist) to clearing the river beds of reeds and wood, has caused the obstructions of the drainage systems to increase the impact of the floods.
Las inundaciones han sido al sur del río Turia y precisamente lo que si ha funcionado bien es este desvío ya que ha soportado el fuerte caudal y además ha conseguido que la ciudad de Valencia no se inundara
@@OfenderEsBueno existen esos proyectos pero se han detenido durante años por una cosa u otra: factores económicos, factores políticos y oposición de ecologistas.
Correct if I'm wrong, they've diverted a trickling river but not the riverbed? Dry riverbeds can be a problem for flooding because they can transport large amounts of rainwater, am I missing something?🤔
they built a new riverbed. the old one is still there but from what coverage i've seen in the uk I don't believe it flooded, at least not severely., it was the new one which burst its banks and caused more devastation outside the city proper
@@PedestrianDiversions The new riverbed did not burst. It held up as planned and gathered the water from ravines (rambla del poyo, de la saleta) and Turia afluents (Magro river) that did burst. It did a good job leading excess water to the sea and preventing even worse devastation. The alerts and response was mismanaged and similar measures to control those other watercourses were rejected, construction of residential and working spaces happened in floodable areas: all of those were failures that contributed to the tragedy, but the new course of the river was not one of those.
@@MkSS-uj1in thanks for the clarification. the BBC said "the extraordinary volume of rainwater that fell in such a short space of time burst the banks of the river Turia and flooded thousands of people’s homes", alongside a satellite image of the Sedavi / Alfafar sort of area, with a caption 'burst river' right next to the new Turia. That's why I said it, it wasn't completely unsourced speculation! :) But you and numerous other comments here have insisted the Turia didn't overflow, all that flooding was from rambla del poyo etc, so I shall stand corrected as you'll surely know better than foreign media!
@ No worries, thanks for explaining. I feel very strongly about it because, living in city and with most of my loved ones here, it literally saved our lives and homes and allowed us to be there for the people who were affected. I’m incredibly grateful it was built, now more than ever and that misunderstanding after such a well researched video was painful. Lately, I have also been remembering that, when my grandfather, who lived through the 57 flooding, died, we founds dozens of papers from that catastrophe among his things, because he didn’t want to forget and, it comforts me that, in all the many ways we failed, at least, it saved the city he loved from going through it again. I hope we can find the same impetus we achieved back then to also learn from our mistakes and protect the affected ravine areas in the future, just like we did the city. 🧡
@@PedestrianDiversions What has flooded the towns south of Valencia has not been the Turia River... that has been well contained by the southern plan. What has flooded has been the Rambla del Poyo. (=Rambla, Ravine through which the waters run after torrential rains). In the southern plan it was planned that this ravine would be protected with water lamination dams and channeled... but the cost of the works and the fact that in recent decades, the "ecologists" have been opposing the construction of reservoirs (They made fun of F. Franco calling him "Paco Frog" for his obsession with building reservoirs, without admitting that thanks to that we have been saved from many droughts/floods); together with their opposition (the ecologist) to clear the river beds of reeds and wood, has caused the obstructions of the drainage systems to increase the impact of the floods.
What has flooded the towns south of Valencia has not been the Turia River... that has been well contained by the southern plan. What has flooded has been the Rambla del Poyo. (=Rambla, Ravine through which the waters run after torrential rains). In the southern plan it was planned that this ravine would be protected with water lamination dams and channelled... but the cost of the works and the fact that in recent decades, the "ecologists" have been opposing the construction of reservoirs (They made fun of F. Franco calling him "Paco Frog" for his obsession with building reservoirs, without admitting that thanks to that we have been saved from many droughts/floods); together with their opposition (the ecologist) to clearing the river beds of reeds and wood, has caused the obstructions of the drainage systems to increase the impact of the floods.
Well. We can see what the effect of a major flooding event is now. Apparently the city is safe, but there is major flooding in the towns and villages to the south of Valencia.
The new riverbed did not burst. It held up as planned and gathered the water from ravines (rambla del poyo, de la saleta) and Turia afluents (Magro river) that did burst. It did a good job leading excess water to the sea and preventing even worse devastation. The alerts and response was mismanaged and similar measures to control those other watercourses were rejected, construction of residential and working spaces happened in floodable areas: all of those were failures that contributed to the tragedy, but the new course of the river was not one of those.
Those birds you saw are egrets, most likely little egrets, or cattle egrets : ) I should think you'll be getting many more views on this video in light of recent tragic events. If climate change has the predicted effects on rainfall, Spain is in a world of trouble with it's urban design. I think future floods will demonstrate the arrogance of past urban planners.
If you fancy another Spanish urbanist project to look into, I'd investigate the Ciudad Lineal (Linear City) in Madrid. I think you'd find it really interesting! I've got a couple of sources with me here in Bristol on it but youd have to learn some Spanish lol
I did start duolingo during covid but then I tried some on a spanish lass and she said I sounded mexican, so I gave up and resolved to find spanish spanish classes instead and never got round to it... sounds interesting, cheers for the heads up
@@PerfectSpainValencia yes but a historic river WILL ALWAYS find its original path also doesn't help that everything maintenance wise is Tomorow Tomorow block drains, dikes, calverts gutters i used to see it daily when i lived over there
@@PerfectSpainValencia utter utter crap, rivers will always follow the same path eventualy as they all have for millions of years humans are delusional
This video didn't age well ., RIP all the people dead due to human stupidity, specially those who see nature and global warming as nuisances, or spendable partners
Funny you should mention London, there have been plans to drain the Thames and turn it into a park for a while now, same reason as here, to stop flooding. Whilst unlikely it would be rather interesting to see what it'd be like, wouldn't be the first time London removed a river, they've done it before with others
Water has, and always will, fall from the sky and rise from springs. All that has changed is the places it can run back into the ground ( concreting over land), and the speed it runs away ( man made culverts, roads and concreting over land) and the amount of transpiration to suck it from the earth back into the atmosphere ( chopping down trees to concrete over land). If only we could work out the common factor here?
Well, the diversion worked and protected tens of thousands of people, including myself, in the city. However, it seems to have lead to urban and commercial sprawl into the flood-plains of adjacent ‚ramblas‘ and small rivers, leading to 200+ deaths in the areas. When the Romans came into the land they recognised where the high ground was in the Turia flood-plain and built there their fort, which became the nucleus of Valencia.
Living here in Valencia this project is an ecological disaster to say the least ... The entire riverbed has turned into a area where millions of mosquitos can breed every summer
The city of Valencia was actually unaffected, thanks to the artificial river bed, which was able to drain all of the water. It was the towns in the other side of the river that suffered badly.
@@aengor I know, I'm from valencia, that's why I want to know his opinion now on the river diversion now that it has proved that it can save the city from this catastrophic events, even though it sentenced the southern towns
About the new riverbed. We have suffered of 70 years of fear for a new flooding, so it seems it was a taboo to do anything with the diverted riverbed in case there was a new episode. Now it is being redacted a renaturalization project and big things are going to happen there
A couple of noteworthy points here. So we are saying the floods this year was in the same month (week) as in 1957? 😬😕😔. Also having a years rain ☔ in a few days (???) no man made structure can overcome, or preplanning can stop that. Perhaps lives could have been saved........if prompt warning ⚠️ had been given. My prayers go out to those that have suffered 🙏. You can't blame them for seeking to do something about a dry-ish river bed. They planted trees and build sports ground. As some have said here some parts were saved.
I was born in Valencia and live nearby. As all of you may know by now, the "Southern Plan" has worked as designed on the huge last week floods (29/10/2024), which happened on the southern cities to Valencia due to other water ways, but the city was saved by this new river path. Sadly, there were still pending works, fatally delayed by decades, which could have saved all the flooded area. We are still counting dead people (as of 5/11/2024) and for sure have ahead a very long path ahead for recovery and these events will never been forgotten. I hope these events trigger the necessary works to protect low lying areas at the end of other water paths, as the "Barranco de Poyo" and the Magro river. The diverted Turia river is no longer a treat to Valencia (BTW, after 1957 there have been several times the new river path took large amounts of water, close to what we have seen last week, so it had already saved Valencia from disaster)
This is precisely the news story I have been searching for. Thank you both for the video and the comment. As soon as the news focused on where the floods were most severe in impact, I wondered what kind of mitigation was done when they moved the Turia - biodiversity, swales, ponds, diversions, etc. The worst of the damage seems to be a direct result of the "southern solution" being an incomplete solution. Politically, it's too easy to defer important infrastructure investments. I have not seen any news coverage in the past week that discussed this as a significant contributing factor to this tragedy. I plan to move to Valencia next year, and I hope they are able to get some smart solutions implemented.
Yes human greed and ignorance, the usual culprits.
They built in a flood plain?
I live in the north of Valencia, that plan saved my village and Valencia city. In 1957 my village had not this luck so Thanks to the people who designed it and made it possible.
I Hitched a ride out of the disaster zone once I had been dropped off with my wife by the UME. As we crossed the River heading towards AV. Ausias March I noted to my my wife that the City of Valencia had been saved by Franco again. We got set down near La Fe "my wife needed treatment" and everything seemed normal. People out jogging. It's crazy what happened just a few KMs away whilst they were sleeping. I will never forget the horrors of that night. DEP to all of those who were'nt as lucky as me.
as a spaniard from bristol this video made me feel more satisfied than your usual output (not an insult!)
You are not Spaniard
You're a Spaniard living in Bristol, you mean?
@@MassiveChetBakerFan someone can consider themselves to be from a city without having been born there, you do not know how many years paddington has lived in bristol, nor know their emotional connection to the city, yet you assume and correct their grammar just because of their country of origin. I am an english woman who has lived in Barcelona for 10 years, more time than i have spent in any english county, let alone city, in another 10 years, I'll have spent more time here than in england as a whole. This is my home, aquesta ciutat és casa meva, soc barcelonina, I am from Barcelona.
I'm from Amsterdam, born in UK and live in Spain.
@@amymagdaleneta vives en España. Aquí se habla español. Ya os vais a enterar
You have, finally, travelled further than the extreme south west of England.
What a revelation. Making for a brilliant, erudite & compelling product.
Thanks for your efforts & time, in sharing your views, literal and littoral.
well I have left the SW before haha...just not for youtube. Glad you enjoyed!
@@PedestrianDiversions Of course, I was addressing your ‘YT persona’, rather than assessing your ‘no doubt’ multifaceted life before or after.
Even, ‘up’ or ‘down’; be that Durdham, Clifton or even Downend.
Love your work; keep it up.
I am from Valencia I have never ear such a good explanation, you have to do a video after the dissaster, to explain how the river save valencia, now that every one is interested
This is a great video that definitely needs to be revisited and updated with the catastrophic DANA that just recently hit the province of Valencia. Yes, the capital city was spared, so the ugly infraestructure did its job well for the city, but several generations of corruption and property speculation saw the construction of sprawling towns between the new Turia diversion and the Albufera lagoon. A recipe for disaster now laid bare, but too late to solve. I recommend the two following videos as the best explanation of what has happened: Isaac Moreno Gallo’s “Geografía de una Inundación” showing the decades long badly planned growth of these towns outside the capital, and El Confidencial’s “Así se inundó Valencia” on the catastrophe itself.
I think that it shouldn’t be touched, its a fantastic document what was in the minds of the people before the flood.
@@alexandrejuve1305 you're in luck, cos I have no intention of making an update. I don't think it would be appropriate as a non-local who doesn't speak the languages. it was one thing for 1957 where I had 60 years of secondary sources and historical remove but I cannot do justice to contemporary events. thanks to Natalia for the recommendations of local coverage
@@PedestrianDiversionsVery humble of you.
As you may know by now the new river bed saved Valencia on October 29th 2024 of a worse flood disaster than 1957. You could do a small update on this video. I lived my whole life looking at this ugly 60’s engineering work outside our city but the credit to saving hundreds if not thousands of lives and billions of Euros in material damages goes to it. Once in over 50 years, but it has fulfilled its role properly.
It did work. Valencia city was pretty much saved, but problems arose with other courses of water, extensively urbanized like Paiporta and Catarroja wich are litterally all over the riverbeds.
Welcome back! I was getting worried but now I understand the absence. Must have taken a quite a while to get to Valencia by bus. (But he still can't make it out to Chipping Sodbury...)
ha! was that the hatters, or something else ..I forget offhand but I have a file with ideas and suggestions safely stored for 2024 :)
@@PedestrianDiversions Hatters (tragically sometimes "mad") in Winterbourne and Sodbury (well there must have been in Sodbury since there is a Hatters' Lane). Yate is interesting as a planned New Town development in the sixties, complete with pedestrianised shopping centre and "modern" sculpture. If you do think of exploring the topic of Valencia more then you might be interested in "Sails and Winds" by Michael Eaude. I read it in preparation for a visit and it was illuminating. Thanks for all the articles - do keep them coming even if they are all from Somerset or Spain - and Merry Christmas!
I appreciate you for giving history to valencia River turia.
The history seems very important considering the recent flood
Thank you for the wonderful history of the Turia River. I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation, especially in light of the recent floods.
As a Valencian I enjoyed a lot all the data on this video. After the recent floods in this area, there are still arguments about the paper of the New Turia, or South Plan. It would be interesting to make a new video in depth with the aftermath of this catastrophe.
The Guadalquivir River in Sevilla was also shifted to the west. The old channel is still there but is effectively a lake behind a flood barrage that also allows access to the port. Sevilla is an inland city but the river is more substantial and its the only inland port in Spain. The river above Sevilla is mostly unnavigable.
In Cordoba the Guadalquivir sits in a massive channel, which relatively recently has been allowed to re-naturalise. I think Cordoba would fare well with a rise in river level.
Fantastic video as always. Thanks for the hard work that must have gone into it. I have very fond memories of a free Bjork concert outside the Ciudad de Las Artes y Las Ciencias when I studied in Valencia in the early 2000s. People climbed up the tree-like bridge supports to sit in the cradles for a better view and I was impressed that the lovely pond area had no discarded beer cups or drunk people in it in after the concert, in contrast to my expectations of what it would have looked like were it England. Loved the whole Turia area.
I'm so excited to see you back! Your work is always amazing
Thanks!
The southern plan was not an imposition of the Franco regime. On the contrary, the local authorities were the ones who wanted an ambitious project. Franco's government wanted to invest as little as possible. The mayor put pressure on the government and even criticized Franco publicly on this issue. In the end the government was forced to invest in the most ambitious plan in order not to be exposed, but in return the mayor was forced to resign and the government made the city pay dearly for it.
The diversion has remained a dry channel because there are reservoirs upstream that prevent water from reaching the river except in times of heavy rains that usually occur mainly in autumn-winter. There have been demands for the new southern channel to be a river in practice and to flow into the sea and allow an ecological flow to carry the necessary sediment to prevent erosion of the beaches south of the city.
The southern plan not only served to protect the city from the risk of floods that have been occurring for centuries, but also served to make a ring road that prevented a lot of traffic through the urban area of the city, especially transport of goods to and from the port. If we add to this the urban park that crosses the city, the quality of life took a huge leap.
In general, the benefits outweigh the harms.
19:32 Yes there have been even heavier rains in times after 1957. For example in 1982 and 1986. The work therefore seems to have been successful in preventing flooding.
podrías pasar fuentes sobre lo del primer párrafo?
Excellent. Thanls for this. I live in Bristol now but lived in Valencia for a year from 2001 to 2002. I love the place. Calatrava is a genius and the city just had a lovely feel to it. People are out every evening and it's welcoming. I will have to go back there at some point.
I think after recent events, it's time to revisit this river diversion project
In fact it worked well. The city of Valencia was untouched because of that.
@@aengor
I guess it worked great but too bad for those that lived south of the city, where it didn't work
Very interesting video, thank you very much! Now it’s even more interesting, guess if the river wouldn’t have been displaced, today the tragedy of the recent apocalyptic flooding in Valencia could cause many more victims and bigger destructions
the river returned, so the divorce was fake and people trusted on it
@@eng3d Lo que dices no es cierto. El Turia no se desbordó ni regresó a su antiguo cauce. Las inundaciones recientes las causaron otros cuerpos de agua, concretamente el Barranco del Poyo. Valencia capital se salvó gracias al desvío del Turia.
you can't imagine Valencia with a big river running through it. I'm from there and when I was a child I used to go down to play in the riverbed, there was only a stream that sometimes didn't even carry water. It wasn't a very healthy place, so creating a big park was a great idea.
The project saved Valencia from the flash flood of 10/2024, but everything south of it got swamped, and the 5000m3 capacity was not enough to prevent this.
Worst part is that it was never tested until now and since everyone took it for granted many industries and towns grew to the south of Valencia next to the new Turia. Those housing complexes were literally in a red zone just waiting for another flash flood 😢
El Turia no ha sido la causa del desastre.
Las ciudades afectadas al sur de la ciudad están atravesadas por un barranco, que ha sido el desbordado, que no está lo suficientemente protegido y proporcionado.
El nuevo cauce del Turia ha funcionado perfectamente, tal y como se esperaba cuando se diseñó.
El barranco también ha tenido planes para adecuarlo pero la presión de ecologistas lo ha impedido.
Flooding south of Valencia wasn’t caused by Turia, it was by another rivers located south that don’t have enough flooding management systems. The diversion of the river saved Valencia and also prevented that the flooding at south of being worse
@@daniloosorio3400 Esto es interesante. ¿Es esta quizás la razón por la que las autoridades no dieron suficientes advertencias, porque pensaban que el nuevo canal Turia era suficiente?
@@daniloosorio3400It was caused by cloud seeding and weather modification.
Baraka the Minister of equipment and water in Morocco announced that Morocco has conducted 70 cloud seeding operations in 2024, which has had a catastrophic impact on Spain.
The Spanish goberment also do their own SAI, as they signed the Paris Agreement.
North Carolina and Florida have also been under attack by their own DoD.
SAIs are only permitted by the country of origin, in the country of origin.
However, scientists have warned about the knock-on effects in neighboring countries.
So the bans on SAIs in Tennessee and Idaho are irrelevant.
It's no wonder that the people from Valencia, threw mud at King Phillipe and Sanchez.
They would have thrown something much harder, if they all knew the truth.
You won't be surprised that I was drawn to your video by tragic recent events. You wisely sat on the fence instead of passing judgement as a conclusion. As an architect who used to lecture in urbanism, I remembered that they re-routed the old river course and planted a park in it's stead. And its easy to blithely suggest that the scheme failed, I did wonder whether they had ability to re-route flood water down the old River Turia channel to half the flow in the new one but I'm sure you would have mentioned if they had done. And whether that would have done much good or not is just a guess right now. After devastating floods (New Orleans) there is a common mantra - that the flood defences saved the rich suburbs but condemned the poor ones - and I can see that that might happen now, even in my town of Doncaster they said the town centre was saved while the dirt poor townships further north were sunk when the beck burst its banks (and yet wasn't diverted into the River Don).
It looks as though there was poor town planning and buildings were built where they shouldn't have been in Valencia, though when you have an area called Torrent, it seems the writing is on the wall. Did the new southern river swamp the entire area between it and the 'Barancs' (streams?) that run through Torrent?? Time will tell if most of the dead were in cars or in their homes or elsewhere - but evidently flanking the new Storm Drain with motorways seems stupid in 20:20 HINDSIGHT, in backward Fascist Spain in the 1960s, I don't suppose much of the population actually drove cars at all and the leitmotif of the 2024 floods is the cars tossed as into a toybox.
So how to rebuild Valencia, and where to do it?
Oh and btw. Valencia isn't the only Spanish city where they re-directed the river around the city ... Seville springs to mind and Malaga now has a storm drain for a river too. Perhaps it is too easy to do this re-engineering in a country where the rivers are reduced to piddles most of the time and look such a scrubby mess - whereas as you mention, it would be unthinkable in Bristol, London or Paris, easier to do physically and psychologically too.
Well, now we know that by diverting the river they saved the city of Valencia, but they left out the surrounding towns, and carried on building in the areas that would get flooded in a disaster...which has now happened, with a death toll of 214+.
Spectacular City, although in my memory it was a lot busier and too hot to walk about ... looks like you had the perfect opportunity to explore. Well done, great video. 👏😀
It was very busy... Oxford-Street-the-week-before-Christmas busy at times. But I tend to be squeamish sticking camera in people's faces so I end up with footage that looks quieter than it generally is/was. Not too hot in Nov
Here in Athens things are very similar. We've turned what used to be a swamp into part of the city, due to diverting the flow of our 2 rivers Kifisos and Ilissos and they stopped flooding the swamp. Now Athens is going to have many problems if something like what happened there happens here...
I haven’t visited Valencia for 50 years, appreciate seeing you views
Excellent work; should be shown in every school. As a landscape Architect, we are of course strong advocates of green spaces with trees but the madness of replacing nature with roads must be exposed.
As a tourist I enjoyed the Turia parks very much 2 years ago. And due to the recent floodings elsewhere in Valencia province your video became very relevant.
Fabulous, I live nearby and am always impressed by the elegance and beauty of Valencia.
This was good! Watched it all the way through
Very informative. I knew the outline but the detail was interesting. A particularly prophetic statement about the rerouting never having been really tested ! Very sad for the people of Southern Valencia. Its a great City
i've never been so unhappy at an old video becoming topical. :( Best wishes to all affected
As the one who moved to Valencia and accidentally rented my first apartment just about 230m from the Turia park, I may undoubtedly say that it happened to become one of the most important reasons that made me fall in love with Valencia. Living next to this park is such a blessing - there's a 5 km-long jogging lane with the km signs marking every 100 m; there are dog walking cages and agility training courses, there is a million yoga, boxing, calistenics, gymnastics, etc. classes going on there everyday; there are so many thematic meetups of a hundred various subjects; sports groups for kids on 5 stadiums for different types of sports, and a tremendous walking and chilling spaces that we wholeheartedly loved. The only downside of the park is "culture diversity bringers" - illegal immigrants from Africa and Middle East... they steal bikes and e-scooters, drag telephones and jewelry from people, and also (it's an unpopular thing to say out loud) sexually harass and even rape ladies walking there alone in the evenings... But overall - OH YES, TURIA PARK IS JUST FABULOUS!
It also brings racist slavs to settle around it, apparently.
@@rafarequeni822 Go walk across Turia park after 10 PM, you deversity-brainwashed liberal idiot. Go pay more taxes into the prosperous Spanish economy than me - then say bullshit like this.
@@rafarequeni822Yeah, racists slavs who will not steal your mobile in front of you...😂
Truth is not racist mate
Lovely video. Good sources, good investigation, nice to travel here to film and discover things on your own. I really enjoyed it and almost cried (of sheer joy) at some points. If I had to mention something, I won't say the new river bed hadn't been tested yet, we have that kind of atmospheric anomalies called here DANA or gota freda (cold front) annually. I'm writing this days after a massive flood killing hundreds in cities next to Valencia, while the new river was close to overflow and Valencia itself remained untouched.
its crazy than 10 months after you got an answer abt plan sur utility
Just back from Valencia and had the pleasure of visiting here, it's wonderful.
After storm Dana I hope moving the river Turia saved Valencia 🙏
Wonderful history lesson btw.
It looks like it did it's job well, and yes, great video 🙏
@@lauraanndoig9703 A good job in that it saved the City itself but it looks like the "new" river could not contain the amount of water thrown at it and consequently it has spilled it out onto the areas and people South of the City
Excellent video couldn't agree more about the daft diversion..For DANA read DAM. DANA is a distraction.
@@iangibson-h5h It did not spill on to the South and it was NOT the cause of the devastation. It worked well and gathered all the water that came from ravines that spilled further south, redirecting the excess water to the sea and saving the city from being pulled into the catastrophe. More water management measures are needed in those ravines (rambla del poyo, rambla de la saleta) that were discarded, among other measures, but the new course was a good thing.
@@iangibson-h5h What has flooded the towns south of Valencia has not been the Turia River... that has been well contained by the southern plan.
What has flooded has been the Rambla del Poyo. (=Rambla, Ravine through which the waters run after torrential rains).
In the southern plan it was planned that this ravine would be protected with water lamination dams and channelled... but the cost of the works and the fact that in recent decades, the "ecologists" have been opposing the construction of reservoirs (They made fun of F. Franco calling him "Paco Frog" for his obsession with building reservoirs, without admitting that thanks to that we have been saved from many droughts/floods); together with their opposition (the ecologist) to clearing the river beds of reeds and wood, has caused the obstructions of the drainage systems to increase the impact of the floods.
Great video as always, I thoroughly enjoyed it! Didnt know Valencia has so many coll bridges. And 11:50 haha nice
Brilliant and thoroughly enjoyable. As usual your humour is on point and drier than the Turia out of rainy season. I was hoping you would mention how successful the river move has been in its original purpose, but when you dropped the bomb that it had never been tested, I must admit to being disappointed. Seeing floods flow dynamically down ancient Ramblas is really rather satisfying. Equally concerning is the apparent loss of the famous Valencian Orange. Still, I am sure global warming will have a part to play in the future. So I cannot wait for your extended season on the death of the Mekong - 5 Countries, 13 dams and the slow demise of one of the worlds great rivers. Please don't actually visit SE Asia, you won't be allowed back in one piece. But in depth analyses like yours are treasures. Thanks.
it has been tested now Martin.
The floods in Spain are caused by deforestation. Three thousand years ago all of southern Europe was covered in dense forest which only survives on the Azores. Gradually, humans removed the forest and now there is nothing to prevent the flood waters rushing downstream and flooding cities and farmland. If Spain reforests the catchment areas, the floods will be minimised.
Really great video. Shockingly good.
Thank you for a fascinating video.
Dammm we've gone international now, what a treat
not sure your enthusiasm for extra-Bristolian content will be widely shared! but we'll see
Ché! De categoria! 👌
I wonder if the rerouting of the Turia river and subsequent developments and planning decisions played any negative role in the disastrous floods of 2024 in Valencia and how they compare with the 1957 inundation
November 2024...A River Moves a City.
"No one would think of redirecting the Danube" The Viennese did
Funnily enough, first thing I thought when news reports told about November floods was, “How is this possible if Valencia was founded by the Romans and the were absolute masters of 'water engineering'?” You have solved the question: the Roman part was never flooded. Urbanism in Spain is chaotic and corrupted.
October 29th
Twenty years ago I was near Barcelona and the outflows of rivers had cars swept along in them. I passed the coast in a boat and literally ran over a full size tree that had been swept out to sea.
It's the mountains inland that feed sudden accumulations of rainwater.
curious why this is suddenly getting traffic from a site called 'managebac', apparently some sort of elearning platform, has it been used in a course?
now it has been tested and it worked
Como Valenciano te felicito gran trabajo
in the wake of the recent flooding, i found your video. I found it sad that in the 1957 floods, least than 100 peoples lost their lives and the best way to divert the river , made in time , so that now, there's more than twice the number of victims.
I suspect the official figure from 1957 is much lower than reality as the shanty town occupants would have been disproportionately likely to be undocumented. still, regardless, 2024's high toll is very sad and tragic indeed
The diversion was not the cause of more deaths. It gathered the water from ravines that spilled down south and diverted the water to the sea, saving the city. If it had not existed, the flooding would have covered a wider area and the damage would have been even worse. The alerts were mismanaged and more water management systems are needed near the ramblas (poyo, saleta) that spilled and that were rejected, but this saved us from even worse devastation.
In the 1957 flood, 81 people were found dead and 200 were missing.
In the 2024 flood, 222 people were found dead and 80 were missing...
hello i am from valencia and the new river resist the flood from 1 week ago! almost but it resist
Superb as always. I love your videos even if they aren’t about Bristol. I no longer live in Bristol having moved away in the early 80s. Nevertheless, I am proud to be a Bristolian. However, I have noted that in the past 40 odd years management of the city appears to have been lamentable I am saddened by this.
Very nice park. In some sections a bit to much traffic noise for my taste.
yes the big roads along the sides are a bit unfortunate. I suppose the riverbed elevation change means the park would never flow seamlessly into the city but they do feel like a big barrier to it in places
Now this content makes more sense
As a Valencian I love this video!
Well made. Thank you from Oslo 🙂
7:56 "river". That's such a tease. You should've been on the south bank a week ago. You would've considered it more like a sea.
Ejemplo perfecto de que lo que diga un tipo desde su casa no tiene validez alguna, gente más capacitada y con más experiencia, es la que desvío el río en el 57, gracias a eso se han salvado vidas. En serio no os creáis lo que os cuentan aquí. Las cosas no se hacen por capricho. Amad vuestro país o región.
Why didn't they split the river leaving the old path and then digging a flood overflow river to the South?
Great video, again. We were in Valencia for October half term for a short break and found out about the river removal during. An interesting story and a great feature for people of the city to now enjoy. We hired bikes and it's very strange to cycle under the dry bridges....we did wonder how such a scheme would play out in London.
I wonder if it will all be worth it when proper rainfall gives it its first test...let's hope it works and prevents a flood as planned. Thanks for your work...however far afield you go. Cheers
There’s a disused waterway, an old meander of the Meuse, in Liege 🇧🇪. It WAS converted in to an urban roadway, but now they’re adding a tram! Apparently, the 60s road project was used as an excuse to close the city’s extensive tram system, with the promise of a metro to replace them. The metro never arrived…
SUPERB video. Thank You. Good bless Valencia❤
Most of coastal Spain has been devastated by uncontrolable construction with no lack whatsoever to preventing disasters like this one. I live on the southern coast and construction happens beside rivers, on top of them and only a few yards away from the sea. Population has been growing at a rate that has left most cities unsustainable of essentials. My prayers and support to Valencia. It can happen to any over built city on coastal Spain.
Well, now we know that Turia´s deviation really saved downtown Valencia.
and the rest of the city.
Watching this after the catastrophic and deadly 2024 floods and wondering how this change affected that.
Well, the city of Valencia was untouched thanks to that. It was actually the towns in the outskirts (other side of the river) that were flooded.
I hope you will go back and show us exactly how the old city and the park have done with the current floods 2024. We are all watching with horror the floods in the area all around the city. The river park through Valencia city is fantastic, is it saved or destroyed.
The city did not flood at all. The river diversion channel worked as designed. the flooding was South of the city and in the interior where the massive rains fell that were flooded.
So sad..... Everybody talking about how great project, great gardens, great video.... But there are so many victims now and such a big disaster....😢
What has flooded the towns south of Valencia has not been the Turia River... that has been well contained by the southern plan.
What has flooded has been the Rambla del Poyo. (=Rambla, Ravine through which the waters run after torrential rains).
In the southern plan it was planned that this ravine would be protected with water lamination dams and channelled... but the cost of the works and the fact that in recent decades, the "ecologists" have been opposing the construction of reservoirs (They made fun of F. Franco calling him "Paco Frog" for his obsession with building reservoirs, without admitting that thanks to that we have been saved from many droughts/floods); together with their opposition (the ecologist) to clearing the river beds of reeds and wood, has caused the obstructions of the drainage systems to increase the impact of the floods.
Well, finally there has been such flood since 1957, so the riverbed has already been tested
Las inundaciones han sido al sur del río Turia y precisamente lo que si ha funcionado bien es este desvío ya que ha soportado el fuerte caudal y además ha conseguido que la ciudad de Valencia no se inundara
@cristinaravet3706 ¿entonces cuándo van a desviar los demás cauces que sí han inundado las poblaciones de alrededor de Valencia?
@@OfenderEsBueno existen esos proyectos pero se han detenido durante años por una cosa u otra: factores económicos, factores políticos y oposición de ecologistas.
Correct if I'm wrong, they've diverted a trickling river but not the riverbed? Dry riverbeds can be a problem for flooding because they can transport large amounts of rainwater, am I missing something?🤔
they built a new riverbed. the old one is still there but from what coverage i've seen in the uk I don't believe it flooded, at least not severely., it was the new one which burst its banks and caused more devastation outside the city proper
@@PedestrianDiversions The new riverbed did not burst. It held up as planned and gathered the water from ravines (rambla del poyo, de la saleta) and Turia afluents (Magro river) that did burst. It did a good job leading excess water to the sea and preventing even worse devastation. The alerts and response was mismanaged and similar measures to control those other watercourses were rejected, construction of residential and working spaces happened in floodable areas: all of those were failures that contributed to the tragedy, but the new course of the river was not one of those.
@@MkSS-uj1in thanks for the clarification. the BBC said "the extraordinary volume of rainwater that fell in such a short space of time burst the banks of the river Turia and flooded thousands of people’s homes", alongside a satellite image of the Sedavi / Alfafar sort of area, with a caption 'burst river' right next to the new Turia. That's why I said it, it wasn't completely unsourced speculation! :) But you and numerous other comments here have insisted the Turia didn't overflow, all that flooding was from rambla del poyo etc, so I shall stand corrected as you'll surely know better than foreign media!
@ No worries, thanks for explaining. I feel very strongly about it because, living in city and with most of my loved ones here, it literally saved our lives and homes and allowed us to be there for the people who were affected. I’m incredibly grateful it was built, now more than ever and that misunderstanding after such a well researched video was painful.
Lately, I have also been remembering that, when my grandfather, who lived through the 57 flooding, died, we founds dozens of papers from that catastrophe among his things, because he didn’t want to forget and, it comforts me that, in all the many ways we failed, at least, it saved the city he loved from going through it again. I hope we can find the same impetus we achieved back then to also learn from our mistakes and protect the affected ravine areas in the future, just like we did the city. 🧡
@@PedestrianDiversions
What has flooded the towns south of Valencia has not been the Turia River... that has been well contained by the southern plan.
What has flooded has been the Rambla del Poyo. (=Rambla, Ravine through which the waters run after torrential rains).
In the southern plan it was planned that this ravine would be protected with water lamination dams and channeled... but the cost of the works and the fact that in recent decades, the "ecologists" have been opposing the construction of reservoirs (They made fun of F. Franco calling him "Paco Frog" for his obsession with building reservoirs, without admitting that thanks to that we have been saved from many droughts/floods); together with their opposition (the ecologist) to clear the river beds of reeds and wood, has caused the obstructions of the drainage systems to increase the impact of the floods.
EXCELLENT AS always, appreciate it
What has flooded the towns south of Valencia has not been the Turia River... that has been well contained by the southern plan.
What has flooded has been the Rambla del Poyo. (=Rambla, Ravine through which the waters run after torrential rains).
In the southern plan it was planned that this ravine would be protected with water lamination dams and channelled... but the cost of the works and the fact that in recent decades, the "ecologists" have been opposing the construction of reservoirs (They made fun of F. Franco calling him "Paco Frog" for his obsession with building reservoirs, without admitting that thanks to that we have been saved from many droughts/floods); together with their opposition (the ecologist) to clearing the river beds of reeds and wood, has caused the obstructions of the drainage systems to increase the impact of the floods.
Well. We can see what the effect of a major flooding event is now. Apparently the city is safe, but there is major flooding in the towns and villages to the south of Valencia.
Exactly. And so many victims 😥
The new riverbed did not burst. It held up as planned and gathered the water from ravines (rambla del poyo, de la saleta) and Turia afluents (Magro river) that did burst. It did a good job leading excess water to the sea and preventing even worse devastation. The alerts and response was mismanaged and similar measures to control those other watercourses were rejected, construction of residential and working spaces happened in floodable areas: all of those were failures that contributed to the tragedy, but the new course of the river was not one of those.
Now what are they going to do?
Interesting this appeared in my feed a few days after the devastating floods
The river has not been the source of the disaster. The ravines has been.
Where did you get all the videos from?
i went to valencia for a week and filmed it
Those birds you saw are egrets, most likely little egrets, or cattle egrets : )
I should think you'll be getting many more views on this video in light of recent tragic events. If climate change has the predicted effects on rainfall, Spain is in a world of trouble with it's urban design. I think future floods will demonstrate the arrogance of past urban planners.
What? This isn't Bristol! I must be lost.
Seriously though, great video. You should do more when you visit other places.
The EU removed the protecting dams for the biodiversity in the last years...
If you fancy another Spanish urbanist project to look into, I'd investigate the Ciudad Lineal (Linear City) in Madrid. I think you'd find it really interesting! I've got a couple of sources with me here in Bristol on it but youd have to learn some Spanish lol
I did start duolingo during covid but then I tried some on a spanish lass and she said I sounded mexican, so I gave up and resolved to find spanish spanish classes instead and never got round to it... sounds interesting, cheers for the heads up
El Rincon at the end of north st do Spanish classes.
El Rincon at the end of north st do Spanish classes.
utterly stupid as soon as heavy rains come the river will find its original path like it has for millions of years & now mega floods
hm, obviously no as explained in the comments. Thee new channel has save many lives and billions of euros of damages multiple times.
@@PerfectSpainValencia yes but a historic river WILL ALWAYS find its original path also doesn't help that everything maintenance wise is Tomorow Tomorow block drains, dikes, calverts gutters i used to see it daily when i lived over there
@@PerfectSpainValencia utter utter crap, rivers will always follow the same path eventualy as they all have for millions of years humans are delusional
El algoritmo la clava eh
This video didn't age well ., RIP all the people dead due to human stupidity, specially those who see nature and global warming as nuisances, or spendable partners
It has aged pretty well actually. The city of Valencia was unaffected by the floods thanks to the artificial river bed.
Urban - architect here. Very interesting. But coming from northern Italy I wouldn’t call those “industrial” areas 😅
Funny you should mention London, there have been plans to drain the Thames and turn it into a park for a while now, same reason as here, to stop flooding. Whilst unlikely it would be rather interesting to see what it'd be like, wouldn't be the first time London removed a river, they've done it before with others
Water has, and always will, fall from the sky and rise from springs. All that has changed is the places it can run back into the ground ( concreting over land), and the speed it runs away ( man made culverts, roads and concreting over land) and the amount of transpiration to suck it from the earth back into the atmosphere ( chopping down trees to concrete over land). If only we could work out the common factor here?
History always repeats itself. I wouldn't want to live in that flood zone ever again
bruh, you should really do some research before talking nonsense
@jlgf3148 don't worry trump will fix everything 💯💯💯💯💯💯
@@GeeGee19 wtf are you about? What does the orange goon have to do with any of this. Your are just factually wrong.
Well, the diversion worked and protected tens of thousands of people, including myself, in the city. However, it seems to have lead to urban and commercial sprawl into the flood-plains of adjacent ‚ramblas‘ and small rivers, leading to 200+ deaths in the areas. When the Romans came into the land they recognised where the high ground was in the Turia flood-plain and built there their fort, which became the nucleus of Valencia.
Big mistake and the locals paid a very high price
Living here in Valencia this project is an ecological disaster to say the least ... The entire riverbed has turned into a area where millions of mosquitos can breed every summer
You mean the new cauce or the park where the old river was?
Well, nice video but wrong conclusions.
The project was necessary and worked very well several, times included this last one.
@@neurosp i did not conclude it to be unnecessary or not working
Witnessing the tragic flooding of Valencia in November 2024…….i come across this ……..
Cities are built on rivers because floating on water was easier than hacking through trees and vegetation to get from A to B.
what's your opinion nowadays after the fatal floods of 2024?
The city of Valencia was actually unaffected, thanks to the artificial river bed, which was able to drain all of the water.
It was the towns in the other side of the river that suffered badly.
@@aengor I know, I'm from valencia, that's why I want to know his opinion now on the river diversion now that it has proved that it can save the city from this catastrophic events, even though it sentenced the southern towns
About the new riverbed. We have suffered of 70 years of fear for a new flooding, so it seems it was a taboo to do anything with the diverted riverbed in case there was a new episode. Now it is being redacted a renaturalization project and big things are going to happen there
The river still floods with Valencian tear every time they face Real Madrid.
A couple of noteworthy points here. So we are saying the floods this year was in the same month (week) as in 1957? 😬😕😔. Also having a years rain ☔ in a few days (???) no man made structure can overcome, or preplanning can stop that. Perhaps lives could have been saved........if prompt warning ⚠️ had been given. My prayers go out to those that have suffered 🙏. You can't blame them for seeking to do something about a dry-ish river bed. They planted trees and build sports ground. As some have said here some parts were saved.
Pueden montarlo como quieran, pero otra vez más, salvó a España.
It moved back.