The areas flooded by the two flood events of May 2023 in Emilia-Romagna are colored sea blue. The map that shows the perimeter, edited by the regional Agency for Territorial Security and Civil Protection, makes clear what it means to say “Romagna has ended up under water”. Between Imola (BO) and Gambettola (FC) blue prevails. The twin map, dotted with orange, instead reconstructs the over 80 thousand landslides that were activated in hilly and mountainous areas. It is the measure of a disaster from which the territory is struggling to emerge. At the end of April, however, the preliminary special plan was published, with the aim of (re)defining the “rules of the game”, in the face of an exceptional and unexpected event that helped us understand that climate change requires new tools of action and adaptation. For this reason, the Plan seems to contradict the president of the Emilia-Romagna Region, candidate for the European Parliament, Stefano Bonaccini, who had immediately stated that the desire to “rebuild everything”.
The Plan – the result of work coordinated by the Po River District Basin Authority – is very direct in predicting that there will be no increase in the urban planning load in the flooded areas in May 2023: «The issuing of qualification certificates must be excluded concerning new buildings, demolition and reconstruction interventions, urban restructuring, out-of-shape extensions and any other intervention, even temporary, which involves an increase in urban planning load, including changes of intended use even without building works”. It is then envisaged that the Municipalities, after careful evaluation, will make a list of “the artefacts and buildings to be relocated”, starting from the artefacts and buildings covered by the evacuation and unusability ordinances.
In the mountain area, there is talk of a potential perimeter of 3,400 buildings, mostly affected or threatened by landslides. On the plain, however, analyzes and evaluations are still underway. As regards the management of rivers, the Plan “envisages creating, starting from the embanked upstream sections, controlled overflow areas where the portion of the flood wave that cannot be contained in the downstream sections can be poured out”. The objective is to manage to convey in a controlled manner a portion of the possible flood into areas with less vulnerability and characterized by predominantly agricultural land use, to thus safeguard the areas characterized by a “greater exposure” in terms of goods and values settled.
What has been defined is in force until the hydrogeological management plans (PAI) of the areas are updated, therefore for a period of up to 3 years, thanks to temporary safeguard measures defined in a Decree of the secretary of the Basin Authority, published on 7 last May. «While waiting for the definition of the new PAI, the granting of new building permits remains frozen which could create problems in the future, perhaps in areas that we will identify for controlled overflow», explains Sandro Bratti, secretary of the Po River Basin Authority .
All the measures described are reflected in the Report of the technical-scientific commission that the Region had established to analyze the extreme meteorological events of the month of May 2023. «We must be well aware that any new construction on land not previously built on inevitably leads to an increase in exposure to risk, as well as to the waterproofing of the soil, with a consequent reduction in the concentration times of floods and worsening of the instability of surface soils”, explain the technicians.
Now it’s up to Romagna administrators to demonstrate that they have understood the message.
