Jorge Olcina Cantos

Climate change poses significant challenges for Mediterranean coastal cities, where impacts on temperature and precipitation extremes are already evident. Effective urban adaptation requires high-resolution, local-scale climate information that gridded global climate models (GCMs) cannot yet directly provide. This study aims to develop and apply a statistical downscaling framework that translates coarse-resolution CMIP6 projections into actionable, local-scale climate information for the city of Alicante (Spain), with a particular focus on temperature and precipitation extremes relevant to urban planning and tourism. To this end, the LARS-WG stochastic weather generator was used to downscale two CMIP6 GCMs (HadGEM3-GC31 and MPI-ESM1-2) under SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios. Three future periods (2031–2050, 2051–2070, 2081–2100), referenced against the 1985–2015 baseline, were analyzed, focusing on key variables for urban tourism and infrastructure: temperature extremes (tropical and torrid nights), precipitation intensity, and dry spell lengths. Projections show a robust increase in nocturnal heat stress, with tropical nights (Tmin ≥ 20 °C) rising from 67 to 110 days/year by 2100 under SSP2-4.5, and torrid nights (Tmin ≥ 25 °C) from 1 to 24 days/year. Although with greater uncertainty, simulation of extreme daily rainfall is projected to increase by up to 65% in the short-to-medium term (2031–2050), contrasting with a relative long-term lengthening of dry spells. These findings provide a solid basis for an urban adaptation roadmap, highlighting critical needs for tackling nocturnal heat, flash flooding, and water management to safeguard key economic sectors such as tourism.

Cities choosing where to act on urban heat increasingly rely on intra-urban temperature maps, yet whether their spatial detail changes a resource-limited selection is rarely tested. Within the evaluated configurations, it mostly does not, and the exception is identifiable. Over six summers in Valencia and Madrid, we select census sections for older residents' 15-minute walking access to primary care along shaded routes, under a station-interpolated field and bias-corrected ERA5-Land, and compare them with population and spatially uniform-temperature rules. Across 288 threshold, window and connection cases, a rule without spatial temperature information retains at least 99% of both reference optima in 212; 44 require another common selection and 32 admit none. With 0.5% and 2% allowances, simple rules suffice in 191 and 250 cases. The exception is Valencia in the afternoon, where selections become incompatible at offsets of ±0.5 °C, whereas Madrid afternoons remain compatible through ±2 °C, and the references disagree spatially, changing 11 of 66 shortlist slots. At 29 independent Valencia sites, observed temperatures decrease by 1.3–2.4 °C per 10 km towards the coast. The station field reproduces this ordering and reduces spatial error by 9–14% relative to uniform temperature, whereas the three corrected ERA5-Land cells covering the sites reverse it. Common errors at these sites are comparable to the decision margins. Because the station field attenuates the observed contrast, the results describe the decision value of this smoothed product. Under solar-first accounting, route-shade failure contributes 89–92% of central morning scores. The results concern modelled priorities and potential access.

Flood adaptation in Mediterranean river basins requires approaches addressing floodwater circulation, redistribution and accumulation. This study proposes an exploratory spatial planning framework integrating two-dimensional hydraulic modelling, official flood hazard mapping and traditional water-management knowledge to identify potential Nature-based Solutions (NbS). Applied to the lower Segura basin (southeastern Spain), HEC-RAS 6.6 simulations used spatially uniform extreme rainfall to analyse water depths, velocities and the depth–velocity index (h·v). Functional hydraulic corridors were delineated using a threshold of h·v ≥ 0.30 m²/s. Comparison of simulated inundation with official SNCZI T500 mapping revealed 106.11 km² of overlap (31.59%:, 182.42 km² identified exclusively by the model (54.31%) and 47.34 km² identified exclusively by SNCZI (14.09%). Qualitative spatial correspondence with traditional boquera irrigation systems and azarbe drainage networks informed a preliminary green infrastructure proposal combining multifunctional corridors, drainage adaptations and Controlled Storage Areas. The framework demonstrates the potential of integrating hydraulic modelling and historical knowledge into territorial flood adaptation planning. However, the simulations were not independently validated, and the hydraulic effectiveness of the proposed NbS remains unquantified.

Consecutive dry days (CDD) is widely used to summarize drought‐duration change, but the index depends on the sequence of dry, wet and missing observation states. We test whether provider versions of the same gauge preserve that sequence using 8020 matched station‐version pairs from 24 countries. Pairs represent provider versions of the same physical gauge, so a difference points to archive processing rather than station sampling, siting or instrumentation. Most matched versions agree, but the Spanish AEMET, ECA&D and GHCN‐Daily lineages reveal a localized sensitivity linked to loss of valid trace precipitation. Among 205 AEMET‐involving pairs evaluated over identical years, deliberately degrading valid AEMET traces to missing reduces median from 0.0763 to 0.0089 days yr. ⁻¹ , identifying trace loss followed by spell‐breaking gaps as the dominant mechanism. The effect is largest where trace‐policy exposure coincides with long dry spells: countries with longer dry spells show no detectable discrepancy in their available matched versions, while within Spain the driest stations change trend class in 41.2% of pairs against 17.6% in the wettest, and summer more than winter. A separate within‐archive GHCN‐Daily counterfactual shows that degrading documented trace flags to missing changes CDD trend classification at 5.96% of stations globally. Critically, trace reporting is not stationary: 60.9% of trace‐exposed stations show a significant trend in trace‐day frequency, 72.3% declining, so the encoding choice imprints a directional shift on fitted CDD trends reaching ±0.24 days yr. ⁻¹ in the most exposed networks. Reporting history can therefore be mistaken for drought change. Trace preservation and missing‐day treatment are components of observational uncertainty in precipitation‐duration climatology.

Climate change education has expanded in curricular, institutional and media arenas, yet it still faces a central challenge: turning scientific knowledge into educational practices that transform perceptions, decisions and participation. This article argues that the challenge cannot be addressed by merely adding content about the climate system, because the climate crisis is experienced in specific territories, affects communities unequally and activates emotions that can either enable or inhibit action. Through a critical integrative review and research-reflection approach, the article connects three bodies of scholarship that are commonly developed in parallel: territorial and place-based learning, climate justice, and emotional literacy. Its conceptual novelty lies not in claiming that these components are individually new, but in specifying territorial memory as the mediating mechanism through which scientific evidence, unequal vulnerability, affective experience and collective action are combined in teacher education. On this basis, it presents the TEJA Model—territorialization, experience, justice and action—as a heuristic framework for designing, analyzing and evaluating teacher-education sequences. Its practical contribution is a five-phase process and an operational matrix that translate nearby risks such as floods, droughts and wildfires into inquiry, deliberation, emotional care and feasible collective action. The model is presented as a testable conceptual proposal rather than a validated intervention. The article concludes that relevant climate education must be scientific, human, territorial and political: it should recognize vulnerability, begin from lived places and address unequal responsibilities and collective capacities for action.

The floods triggered by the 29 October 2024 cut-off low in Valencia (Spain) expose a persistent challenge in disaster risk reduction: extensive meteorological and territorial data do not automatically become timely, trusted or actionable public guidance. This conceptual synthesis uses the Valencia event as a diagnostic case and reconstructs selected evidence on rainfall, hydrological escalation and alert timing to develop a data-driven framework spanning observation, modelling, impact assessment, communication, decision-making and post-event learning. Here, “data-driven” denotes an end-to-end governance and translation process, not the development of a new forecasting model. The framework integrates four dimensions: data governance, user-centred visualization, uncertainty communication and school-based education. It also introduces territorial translation as the link between impact forecasts and place-specific infrastructures, routines, vulnerabilities and responsibilities. Its novelty lies in connecting the Early Warnings for All pillars and impact-based, people-centred warning approaches with an explicit educational and territorial learning loop. Its practical contribution is a responsibility matrix, a minimum governance package and an implementation roadmap with indicators for latency, reach, comprehension and protective action. The framework is intended for adaptation, rather than statistical generalization, across Mediterranean and other fast-onset flood contexts. Improved forecasts remain necessary but insufficient: loss reduction requires interoperable records, accessible impact-based messages and inclusive educational programmes that convert scientific information into situated collective competence.

Flood risk in Mediterranean basins is usually discussed in relation to heavy rainfall and hydroclimatic extremes. However, the damage caused by floods is not only the result of the physical event itself. It is also shaped by the way societies have occupied flood-prone areas over time. This contribution presents preliminary results for the Segura River Basin District, in south-eastern Spain, where a long history of floods coexists with intense urbanisation, especially since the second half of the twentieth century.The analysis is based on AMARNA, a multidisciplinary database for natural risk analysis that allows flood episodes and municipal flood cases to be reconstructed from historical, documentary, bibliographic and press sources. For the Segura basin, 664 rainfall episodes and 2,042 municipal flood cases have been identified between 1258 and 2025. Each case is classified according to hydrological behaviour, damage to infrastructure and human vulnerability. This makes it possible to compare very different historical periods and to move from a simple list of events to a more systematic interpretation of flood impacts.In order to explore the relationship between floods and territorial exposure, the paper develops a preliminary Flood Impact and Exposure Index for the period 1900–2025. The index combines two types of information. On the one hand, it uses the AMARNA scores related to infrastructure damage and human vulnerability as an indicator of recorded impact. On the other hand, it incorporates exposure through cadastral data on the age and use of buildings, official flood-prone areas for the 10-, 100- and 500-year return periods, and population data where available. The purpose of the index is not to model hydraulic hazard, but to identify municipalities where flood impacts have become more relevant because urban growth has placed more buildings, people and activities in areas historically exposed to flooding.The preliminary results show a complex temporal pattern. Over the full historical series, the number of recorded flood episodes increases. However, since 1900 this trend becomes less clear, while the number of affected municipalities per episode and the accumulated impact scores tend to rise, particularly after 1960. This suggests that recent flood impacts cannot be explained only by changes in rainfall. Long-standing inland hotspots such as Murcia, Orihuela, Lorca, Cartagena and Caravaca remain important, but the geography of recent impacts points to a growing concentration in coastal and peri-coastal municipalities, especially around the Mar Menor and in urbanised areas crossed by ramblas, ephemeral channels and alluvial fans.These findings support the idea that flood risk in the Segura basin has increasingly been amplified by exposure. The expansion of tourist-residential development and other urban uses within flood-prone areas has contributed to a process of coastalisation of risk. The results also raise a broader question for adaptation policies: structural flood defence and channel modification may reduce local hazard, but they can also encourage further occupation of dangerous areas. The proposed historical-GIS approach can therefore help identify exposure tipping points and support spatial planning, disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation in Mediterranean basins.

This study analyses the Master Plan for Analysis, Anticipation and Reaction to Natural Disasters of the Valencian Community (Spain) from the perspective of geographical risk literacy. The research adopts a qualitative methodology based on documentary analysis and conceptual assessment of public policy. The corpus includes Valencian institutional documents, Spanish civil protection and education regulations, international disaster risk reduction frameworks and the scientific literature on geography education, risk perception, social vulnerability and school preparedness. The findings show that the plan can strengthen institutional coordination, public communication and preventive culture through its preventive orientation, phased structure, official sources, attention to vulnerable groups, updated cartography and promotion of drills. However, its social effectiveness will depend on transforming protocols and guides into verifiable citizen capacities: identifying hazards, recognizing local exposure, interpreting warnings and maps, selecting safe routes, preparing households and rehearsing decisions in realistic contexts. The article proposes complementing the plan with a geographical literacy programme for territorial resilience based on local risk sheets, school atlases, evaluated drills, community mediation, accessible viewers and public monitoring indicators. The discussion places the Valencian case within international debates on disaster risk reduction, anticipatory governance, people-centred early warning systems and school safety. Because no empirical implementation data are yet available, the contribution is framed as an analytical and design-oriented framework requiring subsequent validation through pilots, surveys, interviews and evaluated drills.

Climate change and increasing climatic variability have intensified droughts, rising temperatures, and rainfall uncertainty, placing growing pressure on water resources and spatial planning systems. In this context, governance structures play a central role in shaping how societies anticipate, respond to, and adapt to water scarcity. This study presents a qualitative comparative case analysis of drought governance in two climate-vulnerable regions: the lower Segura, Alicante basin (Spain) and the upper and middle Mira River basin (Ecuador–Colombia border). Although both regions experience recurrent water stress, they differ in institutional arrangements, governance capacities, and levels of stakeholder coordination. Using document-based qualitative analysis and interpretive comparison of policy and institutional frameworks, the study identifies structural and operational governance weaknesses conceptualized as systemic “glitches” that affect coordination, adaptive capacity, and participatory water management. Rather than measuring performance, the study focuses on how governance processes function in practice and how institutional configurations shape drought response. The analysis addresses three interconnected dimensions: (1) the structural factors shaping drought vulnerability, (2) the institutional configurations that condition climate risk governance, and (3) the governance patterns that influence adaptive capacity at the regional scale. The findings indicate that southern Alicante exhibits strong formal institutional capacity but limitations in operational coordination, while the Ecuadorian case shows more pronounced structural constraints affecting planning and implementation. By comparing these two governance contexts, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of how institutional design and policy coherence influence drought management outcomes. The results highlight the importance of flexible, integrated, and multi-level governance systems for improving resilience in water-scarce regions.