The seasonal models spoke of a warm and rainy autumn in the Valencian Community, but except for the storms that passed by in September, it is being a very dry autumn, worryingly dry.”
Jorge Olcina, professor of Regional Geographic Analysis at the University of Alicante, explains to La Vanguardia that the citizen surprise generated by the 30º that was reached yesterday in Valencia and various parts of the Community is in some way shared by the experts, who expected temperatures higher than what was normal until a few years ago, but they were counting on a rainy autumn.
“Temperatures are much higher than expected and rainfall is much lower,” says Olcina. The worst thing is that what seemed exceptional is becoming a trend: “since 2010, it usually rains at the beginning of September, but in October and November, which were the traditionally rainy months in the Mediterranean area, it rains very little.”
This variation in climate has contradictory effects on the different economic sectors. “This is bad for agriculture, because it is altering agricultural production, but it is good for tourism, which is lengthening the high season.”
In fact, Valencia airport was the one that increased its passenger traffic the most in October in all of Spain, over 21%, followed by Malaga and Alicante, which increased it by more than 17%. And the number of Britons visiting tourist destinations like Benidorm is already as numerous in spring and autumn as in summer.
According to Olcina, everything indicates that this trend will become more pronounced. “Tourists from central and northern Europe will avoid the center of summer in the Mediterranean area because it is losing comfort, with very high temperatures combined with high humidity, as we have experienced in the last two summers, but in spring and autumn we are an ideal destination ”, he assures.
For the Alicante professor, it is evident that the global warming process “is going faster than previously thought,” so the towns on our coast have to adapt. “Here we have a differentiating factor that is the sea water,” he adds, “which gets very hot, in summer it is breaking records every year, and that distorts the temperatures, it makes us have more tropical nights, the storms are very intense when It rains, it is a climate change to which different economic activities and cities have to begin to adapt, “which have to design shady spaces, areas with water sources, a sewage system with greater capacity…”.
Of course, this adaptation must be taken into account in the drafting of the new General Urban Planning Plans faced by cities like Alicante, which maintains an anachronistic document from 1987 in force, but Olcina recommends that we do not wait, that we act immediately, and gives as an example the great tourist city of our territory, Benidorm.
The Valencian Climate Change Law, which was approved in 2022, requires the preparation of adaptation plans in Valencian municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants. Benidorm is the first to approve it in a municipal plenary session. It includes more than eighty measures to be carried out in the short and medium term.
In addition to urban planning actions, the document proposes health actions – “care must be adapted, especially in summer, with the extreme heat that we are suffering” -, as well as measures to promote the conservation of biodiversity, improve the design and adaptability of the city, promote the use of renewable energies, self-consumption and efficiency, and raise awareness and inform society, seeking the proactivity of residents and tourists to minimize their environmental impact.
