Valencia
After a catastrophic 1957 flood killed 80 people, Valencia rerouted its river and converted the channel into Europe's most ambitious urban park—but the 2024 floods that killed 200+ proved that engineering shifts risk rather than eliminates it.
Valencia rerouted its own river and turned the empty channel into the most ambitious urban park in Europe. The Turia River flooded catastrophically in 1957, killing over 80 people and devastating the city center. Rather than rebuild the flood defenses, planners diverted the river around the city and converted nine kilometers of dry riverbed into the Jardín del Turia—a linear park that now runs from the Bioparc Zoo to the City of Arts and Sciences, Santiago Calatrava's futuristic cultural complex that has become Valencia's global brand.
Spain's third-largest city (814,000 residents, 1.8 million metro) was founded as Valentia by Roman legionaries in 138 BCE. The Moors held it from 714 to 1238 CE, building the irrigation systems (acequias) that still water the surrounding huerta—one of Europe's most productive agricultural plains. The Tribunal de las Aguas, which has adjudicated irrigation disputes since at least the 10th century, is UNESCO-recognized as one of the world's oldest continuously functioning judicial institutions.
Valencia's economy balances agriculture (oranges, rice—it's the birthplace of paella), port operations (the Port of Valencia is the Mediterranean's busiest container terminal), automotive manufacturing (Ford's Almussafes plant), ceramics, and tourism. The America's Cup (2007, 2010) and Formula 1 European Grand Prix (2008–2012) raised the city's international profile, though the infrastructure spending left significant debt.
The catastrophic floods of October 2024—which killed over 200 people in the greater Valencia region—exposed the vulnerability that the 1957 river diversion was meant to eliminate. Climate-intensified rainfall overwhelmed drainage systems in surrounding municipalities, even as the Turia channel remained dry. Valencia's story is one of engineering responses to natural risk that shift rather than eliminate the danger—a pattern visible in every city built on a floodplain.