Floods in Spain.

[ArMaP]

One of the things the government is doing is removing damns. Over 200 from one source, this one says 133:

Wef

do you think that is having an impact on flooding?

I don't think so, the dams removed on that area were small.

What I think is a problem (there and everywhere else) is something a Portuguese politician said many years ago, based on his knowledge of landscape architect and agronomy engineering: one of the main reasons for floods in urban areas is the fact that people build houses and roads on areas that should absorb water. When we cover a hill with buildings and roads we are creating a cover that prevents water from entering the ground on all of that hill's surface, and the water has only one way to go, down, so it gathers on the lower areas.

Those areas, in many cases, were, originally, creeks or small rivers, but were replaced with roads, so those areas also prevent the water to enter the ground and we have a large area that should be absorbing water into the ground that is now in fact forcing all the water to move to the lower areas next to it, and those areas are, probably, in the same condition.

So, when we get rains of 200mm per square metre in a couple of hours, all that water has nowhere to go, so it runs down the way it can find, in some cases returning to the original creeks and rivers, in other cases creating new ways.