The risks that the Spanish Mediterranean coast poses, were discussed under the name “Extreme events and integral risk management”. Climate change has a huge impact on these risks.
Moreover, climate change’s “Mediterranisation” in the Spanish Mediterranean coast was discussed. The reasons for this are the increased frequency of energy readjustment processes which cause more extreme events and the higher water temperature of the Mediterranean, which alters temperature and rainfall.
For this reason, in order to reduce risk in the coast, it is necessary an integral management of different risk factors such as hazard, vulnerability and exposure. For this purpose, five core issues on integral disaster risk management were analysed. They were related to changes in the study of natural hazard, changes in the design of water infrastructure works, the importance of human part as a risk factor, such as an increase in population and in economic activities, changes in emergency planning and the insurance system, which has a key role in the integral management system.
The panel discussion came to an end with 22 operational proposals directed towards the State, autonomous communities and municipalities. Through these, an integral management can be done so that there is an effective reduction of risk.
Among these, there was the stoppage of new urban planning projects, that were being processed for building in areas with risk of flooding; the design of climate change adaptation plans for different economic sectors, especially those which are strongly exposed to the effects of climate change, such as agriculture and tourism; the preparation of a mapping synthesis (state and regional) of areas of very high risk of flooding and swell risk which enables to establish specific protection measures, or if needed, eviction of buildings where the lives of people are at risk; the creation of a National Platform for Disaster Risk reduction.
In this panel discussion participated Jorge Olcina, Sofía González, María Jesús Perles, Francisco Espejo i Juan Pedro Martín Vide.
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