Plans unveiled for Valencia riverside parks costing €150m to act as ‘sponges’ to soak up floodwater

TWO parks will be built along the banks of the Turia river and the Poyo ravine to act as flood defences in Valencia.

The Valencian Government revealed on Tuesday that the riverside parks- budgeted at least €150 million- will run for a total of 35 kilometres.

They will also have two cycleways to link the parks and around 100 kilometres of trails.

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The aim is to protect surrounding urban areas from another flood with the parks acting as a kind of sponge- similar to the l’Albufera park last October.

€2 million will be allocated in next year’s budget to draft plans for the project.

Regional president Carlos Mazon on Tuesday named the new green area as the ‘park of hope’.

It will regenerate over 1,500 of rural land affected by the October 29 floods and will also include a memorial to the 228 people who lost their lives in the disaster.

One of the parks, l’Horta Sud, will be 18.5 kilometres long between the Albufera Natural Park to Picanya, as well as 5.5 kilometres from the lagoon to Massanassa and Catarroja.

The second park will be an extension of the current Turia Garden to La Vallesa mountain at 10.5 kilometres.

Carlos Mazon said the parks would ‘forever change the face of Valencia’s metropolitan area.’

Details of what will appear in the parks, besides trees, will appear in the project drafting, which is inspired by similar ventures in Munich, Paris and Vitoria.

The concept has been created in association with a team from the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia and the Centre for Mediterranean Environmental Studies of the Mediterranean.

“Reconstruction goes far beyond replacing or repairing what the floods destroyed on October 29 but is about improving our territory in terms of safety, sustainability, and quality of life,” commented Mazon.

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