The Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, visited yesterday the recent regeneration of Premià de Mar beach, which has withstood the last storm, contrary to what happened to the rest of the Catalan coast, where storm Nelson devastated the beaches and reduced their capacity to a minimum. Morán recognized that the Ministry for Ecological Transition (Miteco) and the Demographic Challenge no longer has the beach regeneration strategy that was drawn up in 2015, but focuses on activating protection plans from the emergency in each area of ??the coast.
The serious situation posed by climate change, according to Morán, also forces us to rethink the action strategy to regenerate the coast. The planned intervention model they had planned nine years ago no longer works. Climate change marks the model of action, so that adaptation plans are drawn up depending on the urgency of each case. “The prioritization to move forward more quickly will depend on the degree of severity of the damage,” he summarized.
For the ministry, apart from establishing a priority for each emergency, progress must be made in an agreement between the local administrations, the autonomous communities and the State Government to establish budgetary availability. Morán assured that each situation is unique and, therefore, “it is essential to draw up recovery plans”. With regard to the budgetary situation, the Secretary of State stated that the Recovery and Resilience Plan promoted by the Spanish Government has led the General Directorate of Costs to increase the amount of investments up to 300 million euros.
Regarding the effects of storm Nelson on the Catalan coast, Morán informed that the Delegation of the Spanish Government and the Coastal Demarcation are preparing the report on the impact and damage. In each case, a priority of action will be established, which will be set by the emergency declaration of each affected area. The Secretary of State detailed that there are currently 90 actions in development throughout the Spanish coast, of which eight are centered in Catalonia.
The representative of the ministry praised the level of technical knowledge that Catalonia has accumulated on the impact of climate change, which “will allow us to act with the appropriate degree of knowledge”. Catalan councils, he asserted, “will be the spearhead of future planning” for coastal protection.
Regarding the key infrastructures that may be affected by new storms, such as the promenades or the railway, Hugo Morán admitted that “it is not possible to undertake all the projects”, but that action will be taken on the need that generates urgency in each case.
The priority actions for the future that will be set by the Ministry for Transition based on the scientific studies happen, according to Hugo Morán, “to anticipate the effects of climate change” which entails an inevitable rise in sea level and the rethinking of new urban spaces.
Morán also emphasized the need to protect the services and infrastructures that run along the coast, such as the sanitation pipelines that maintain a high risk of pollution.
In Premià de Mar, the mayor, Rafa Navarro, thanked the ministry for its willingness to act in the regeneration of Bellamar beach, but recalled the need to protect “the first line of services”, which in the Maresme is the way railway and the N-II road.
As vice-president of the Maresme Regional Council, Navarro also asked the secretary that the ministry generate a “unit of thought” regarding the regeneration actions between all the affected administrations, apart from the particularities that each project may have.