Lorraine Williamson
Drought, deluge, and deadly heat have become the rhythm of life in modern Spain. The question is no longer whether climate change exists — it’s how much more we can withstand. The droughts from 2021 to 2025 dried rivers to dust. The devastating DANA storms that followed swept through towns from Valencia to Málaga. And this summer’s searing heat claimed hundreds of lives. Spain, once defined by its sunny Mediterranean appeal, is now on the front line of Europe’s climate emergency.
The country’s challenge is not only to cut emissions — an area where it has made significant progress — but to adapt, quickly and collectively, to this harsher reality. Without a coordinated plan, each year’s crisis will only expose how fragile our infrastructure and cities truly are.
Learning to live with water again
For decades, Spain has tried to control nature: rivers forced into concrete channels, farmland expanded into floodplains, and cities built where water once roamed freely. But as architect and landscape designer Iñaki Alday argues, control has become our greatest weakness. When storms hit, water finds no outlet — and destruction follows.
Alday, who co-designed Zaragoza’s celebrated Parque del Agua, believes the country must stop resisting and start cooperating with its rivers. “Water must be given space again,” he says, urging Spain to adopt a national plan similar to the Netherlands’ Room for the River project. There, floodplains were widened, riverbanks softened, and towns redesigned to absorb — not fight — excess rainfall.
Such changes do not prevent floods entirely, but they turn them from disasters into manageable events. Parks like Pamplona’s Aranzadi and Zaragoza’s Parque del Agua already serve as examples, transforming potential flood zones into community spaces that protect as well as beautify.
Shade: the new urban lifeline
Heat is now Spain’s deadliest natural threat. In 2025 alone, Madrid and Barcelona recorded 458 heat-related deaths. Temperatures of 38°C in the shade can reach over 50°C at street level — a fatal difference for children, the elderly, or those working outdoors.
In this context, Alday calls for a new urban design rooted in shade and greenery. “Tree cover isn’t a luxury,” he insists. “It’s a form of justice.” Wealthier districts are naturally cooler because they have parks and canopy trees; poorer ones, covered in asphalt, become heat traps.
Planting trees, creating green corridors, and reclaiming public squares as shaded refuges can save lives. Urban forests also purify air and improve mental health — a small but vital act of adaptation that connects climate resilience with social equality.
Turning cities into sources of life
Beyond cooling, cities must rethink their entire relationship with water. Instead of being drains that consume and pollute, Alday envisions cities as living systems that generate clean water. Stormwater tanks could become public lakes; wastewater treatment plants could double as wetlands or green parks.
This concept isn’t new — ancient India used stepwells to harvest and store rainwater, while New York’s Central Park was designed around a natural reservoir. Spain, Alday suggests, could lead Europe in reimagining urban water management. By letting rain infiltrate rather than run off, cities can replenish aquifers and support biodiversity — a direct counter to desertification.
Not ideology — necessity
Spain’s climate crisis demands more than lofty promises. These strategies — giving space to rivers, greening cities, and rethinking water — are not radical ideas but pragmatic ones. They are technologically achievable, economically sound, and socially fair. What stands in the way, Alday warns, is not feasibility but political will.
Storms, floods, and heatwaves will not wait for consensus. Spain must now answer a simple question: Will it keep patching up the damage or redesign its relationship with nature?
Source: El País