Abstract
Spain has a rich and textured history whose changes have shaped different water policies over the centuries—not always for the best. Situated in close proximity to freshwater resources, Barcelona’s water infrastructure has evolved over diverse eras of technological capability and political control. This study discusses the climatological variability between floods and droughts, and the related generation of hydrologic adaptations to growing population and worsening climate hazards. It examines the water policies of the Francoist regime, including extensive water transfers for vast irrigation projects, along with the spread of water-vulnerable shantytowns, and also examines the way water issues fostered the social movements that ultimately brought down the Franco regime. In addition to municipalization, Barcelonans contribute to the participatory creation of blue-green infrastructure such as sustainable drainage systems throughout the city. While these projects help increase shade cover, improve soil condition, add wildlife, and control pests, they also bring up difficult issues of spatial inequality of income distribution and green spaces. The concern over what activists call “green gentrification” feeds into suspicions that reforms under the aegis of climate adaptation will only increasingly entrench the spatial inequalities of rich and poor in the city.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Alba DM, Moyà-Solà S, Robles JM, Galindo J (2012) Brief communication: the oldest pliopithecid record in the Iberian Peninsula based on new material from the Vallès-Penedès Basin. Am J Phys Anthropol 147(1):135–140
Anguelovski I, Connolly JJ, Masip L, Pearsall H (2018) Assessing green gentrification in historically disenfranchised neighborhoods: a longitudinal and spatial analysis of Barcelona. Urban Geogr 39(3):458–491
Basnou C, Baró F, Langemeyer J, Castell C, Dalmases C, Pino J (2020) Advancing the green infrastructure approach in the province of Barcelona: integrating biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services into landscape planning. Urban For Urban Green 55:126797
Bukowski J (2007) Spanish water policy and the national hydrological plan: an advocacy coalition approach to policy change. South Eur Soc Politics 12(1):39–57
Camps-Calvet M, Langemeyer J, Calvet-Mir L, Gómez-Baggethun E (2016) Ecosystem services provided by urban gardens in Barcelona, Spain: insights for policy and planning. Environ Sci Pol 62:14–23
Canérot J (2017) The pull apart-type Tardets-Mauléon Basin, a key to understand the formation of the Pyrenees. BSGF-Earth Sci Bull 188(6):35
Charnock G, March H, Ribera-Fumaz R (2021) From smart to rebel city? Worlding, provincialising and the Barcelona model. Urban Stud 58(3):581–600
Camprubí L (2012) ‘Frankie the frog’: the total transformation of a river basin as ‘totalitarian’technology (Spain, 1946–1961). Endeavour 36(1):23–31
De Bellis Y, Santos A, Tosics I, Davies C, Hansen R, Rall E, ..., Lafortezza R (2015) Green infrastructure planning and implementation. The status of European green space planning and implementation based on an analysis of selected European cityregions. GREEN SURGE PROJECT, Deliverable 5
Enrich Pericás R (2022) Aproximació als sistemes hidràulics medievals: Una anàlisi preliminar als territoris de Catalunya, la Comunitat Valenciana i les Illes Balears
Forero-Ortiz E, Martínez-Gomariz E, Cañas Porcuna M, Locatelli L, Russo B (2020a) Flood risk assessment in an underground railway system under the impact of climate change—a case study of the Barcelona metro. Sustainability 12(13):5291
Forero-Ortiz E, Martínez-Gomariz E, Monjo R (2020b) Climate change implications for water availability: a case study of Barcelona City. Sustainability 12(5):1779
Frolova M (2010) Landscapes, water policy and the evolution of discourses on hydropower in Spain. Landsc Res 35(2):235–257
García-Lamarca M, Connolly J, Anguelovski I (2020) Green gentrification and displacement in Barcelona. In: Housing displacement. Routledge, pp 156–170
Gemie S (2011) Anarchism and the City: revolution and counter-revolution in Barcelona, 1898–1937. Anarch Stud 19(1):109
Gorostiza S, March H, Sauri D (2013) Servicing customers in revolutionary times: the experience of the collectivized Barcelona water company during the Spanish civil war. Antipode 45(4):908–925
Gorositza S (2019) Critical networks. In: Laakkonen S, McNeill JR, Tucker RP, Vuorisalo T (eds) The resilient city in world war II: urban environmental histories. Springer
Guardia M, Rosselló M, Garriga S (2014) Barcelona’s water supply, 1867–1967: the transition to a modern system. Urban Hist 41(3):415–434
Hamilton SR (2017) Environmental change and protest in Franco’s Spain, 1939–1975. Environ Hist 22(2):57–281
Hernández-Mora N, del Moral Ituarte L, La-Roca F, La Calle A, Schmidt G (2014) Interbasin water transfers in Spain: interregional conflicts and governance responses. In: Globalized water: a question of governance, pp 175–194
Instituto Geográfico Nacional (2015) Geology and tectonics of the Catalan coastal range. Gobierno de España, Madrid. https://www.ign.es/web/resources/sismologia/tproximos/sismotectonica/pag_sismotectonicas/costerocatalana_en.html
Jaque Ovejero A (2015) Mies en el sótano. El Pabellón dé Barcelona como ensamblajes de lo social. Doctoral dissertation, Arquitectura
Kreibich H, Van Loon AF, Schröter K et al (2022) The challenge of unprecedented floods and droughts in risk management. Nature 608:80–86. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04917-5
Lagabrielle Y, Labaume P, de Saint Blanquat M (2010) Mantle exhumation, crustal denudation, and gravity tectonics during cretaceous rifting in the Pyrenean realm (SW Europe): insights from the geological setting of the lherzolite bodies. Tectonics 29(4):1–26
Langemeyer J, Baró F (2021) Nature-based solutions as nodes of green-blue infrastructure networks: a cross-scale, co-creation approach. Nat Based Solut 1:100006
March H (2015) Taming, controlling and metabolizing flows: water and the urbanization process of Barcelona and Madrid (1850–2012). Eur Urban Reg Stud 22(4):350–367
Masjuan E, March H, Domene E, Saurí D (2008) Conflicts and struggles over urban water cycles: the case of Barcelona 1880–2004. Tijdschr Econ Soc Geogr 99(4):426–439
Matés Barco JM (2019) El abastecimiento de agua a Barcelona (1850–1939): origen y desarrollo de las compañías privadas. Historia Contemporánea 59:161–194
Nóblega Carriquiry A, Sauri D, March H (2020) Community involvement in the implementation of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDSs): the case of bon pastor, Barcelona. Sustainability 12(2):510
Orduña-Giró P, Jacquot S (2015) The participatory production of temporary public spaces in times of crisis. The ‘Pla Buits’ project in Barcelona
Orengo HA, Miró i Alaix C (2013) Reconsidering the water system of Roman Barcino (Barcelona) from supply to discharge. Water Hist 5:243–266
Ortiz A, Velasco MJ, Esbri O, Medina V, Russo B (2020) The economic impact of climate change on urban drainage master planning in Barcelona. Sustainability 13(1):71
Ostos JR, Tello E (2014) A long-term view of water consumption in Barcelona (1860–2011): from deprivation to abundance and eco-efficiency? Water Int 39(5):587–605
Parés M, Rull C, Rivero M (2016) Case Study 9 Spain: developing the Barcelona green infrastructure and biodiversity plan. Nature-Based solutions to address global societal challenges. In: Cohen-Shacham E, Walters G, Janzen C, Maginnis S (eds). International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Gland, Switzerland.
Popartan LA (2020) The socio-cognitive dimension of water: the case of politicisation of water in Barcelona. Dissertation. University of Girona
Popartan LA, Ungureanu C, Velicu I, Amores MJ, Poch M (2020) Splitting urban waters: the politicisation of water in Barcelona between populism and anti-populism. Antipode 52(5):1413–1433
Popartan LA, Ungureanu C (2022) The political ecology of water memory: contending narratives of past hydraulic infrastructures in Barcelona (2015–2021). Polit Geogr 96:102596
Rodríguez R, Navarro X, Casas MC, Ribalaygua J, Russo B, Pouget L, Redaño A (2014) Influence of climate change on IDF curves for the metropolitan area of Barcelona (Spain). Int J Climatol 34(3):643–654
Ruiz-Villaverde A, García-Rubio MA, González-Gómez F (2010) Analysis of urban water management in historical perspective: evidence for the Spanish case. Int J Water Resour Dev 26(4):653–674
Salgot M, Angelakis AN (2019) The historical development of water supply technologies in Barcelona, Spain. In: Evolution of water supply through the millennia. IWA Publishing, London
Sanfeliu Arboix IR, Martín García E (2017) Public space in Barcelona (1992–2017): evolution and case studies. In: IOP conference series: materials science and engineering, vol 245. Institute of Physics (IOP), pp 1–11
Santiago Díaz G (2022) Culpa de la guerra, culpa de Franco. La hambruna española en la Andalucía Oriental rural de posguerra (1939–1953)
Saurı́ D, Del Moral L (2001) Recent developments in Spanish water policy. Alternatives and conflicts at the end of the hydraulic age. Geoforum 32(3):351–362
Sürer İ (2018) The emergence of public space in Barcelona throughout 20th century. Doctoral dissertation, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Swyngedouw E (1999) Modernity and hybridity: nature, regeneracionismo, and the production of the Spanish waterscape, 1890–1930. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 89(3):443–465
Swyngedouw E (2013) Into the sea: desalination as hydro-social fix in Spain. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 103(2):261–270
Tello E, Ostos JR (2012) Water consumption in Barcelona and its regional environmental imprint: a long-term history (1717–2008). Reg Environ Chang 12:347–361
Thompson JKJ (2002) A distinctive industrialization: cotton in Barcelona 1728–1832. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Tinoco Mosteiro H (2022) Les sitges de cereals de l’edat del Ferro a la conca del Llobregat. Estudi morfomètric i qualitatiu de les estructures de conservació d’excedents
Vallvé MB, de la Peña JCR, Vide JM (1998) Instrumental Calibration of climate data. A methodological approach to annual resolution in reference to Barcelona’s precipitation (1521–1989). Investigaciones Geográficas (20), 99
Vázquez FM (2023) Sobre la implantación del arquetipo forense imperial en Hispania. La “provincialización” como concepto y modelo de difusión. Lucentum
Vicente M (2000) Artisans and work in a Barcelona cotton factory (1770–1816). Int Rev Soc Hist 45(1):1–23
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chang, H., Ross, A.R. (2024). Barcelona, Spain. In: Climate Change, Urbanization, and Water Resources. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49631-8_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49631-8_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-49629-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-49631-8
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)