Author(s)

J. Valdés-Abellán, A. J. Tenza-Abril, J. M. Ortega & E. Sánchez-Camacho

Abstract

The southeast coast of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), and especially the Costa Blanca, is a very important tourist destination. Tourism has produced intense urban development, and in most cases, buildings and urban zones have occupied an important part of ravine basins. One of the most important climate features of this geographic area is a very intense and localized rainfall. As a consequence of these rainfalls, water levels in ravines are high. In this work, in order to study the relationship between unsustainable urban development and flood threats, a coastal zone situated in the northern coast of El Campello (Alicante province, Spain) was chosen. Eight ravines flow into the Mediterranean Sea in this area. For each ravine, turnoff thresholds and water levels estimation were calculated for two situations: the first one is the present situation and the second one is a hypothetical initial situation, before the touristic development without urban zones in these basins. Finally, there is a high decrease of turnoff thresholds and a rise of water levels in the studied basins. Then, it could be concluded that an unsustainable urban development produces an increase of flood threat in the particular case of the Costa Blanca, and in general in the southeast coast of Spain, due to their geographic and climate features. Keywords: unsustainable urban development, turnoff thresholds, water levels, flood threaten, rainfall, basins, Mediterranean.

Keywords

unsustainable urban development, turnoff thresholds, water levels, flood threaten, rainfall, basins, Mediterranean