Now that the rains have lost relevance and everything is, little by little, returning to normal: Andalusia is beginning to realize that the winter storms have left much more than accumulated water: they have left a much more uncomfortable truth than the community is willing to accept.
Because now Easter is coming and the “Andalusian paradise of sun and beach” has become a succession of destroyed promenades, damaged infrastructure and stretches where the beaches are completely missing.
It’s something we knew and didn’t want to see. It is something that the storm is going to force us directly.
What has happened? The first part of the story is simple and we have repeated it many times: trains of storms, persistent rains, water systems at the edge of their capacity. But also bad sea, wind and huge waves.
As a consequence, while we were all 100% aware of overflows and reservoirs, several provinces have seen how the loss of sand and damage to coastal infrastructure became our daily bread. Huelva, we have already talked about ithas taken the worst part.
And yes, the Andalusian Parliament has asked the central government (who has powers in the Coasts) for “stabilization, protection and restoration” works through emergency means. But even if they arrive, that will only be a temporary arrangement.
The Andalusia that also lives off its coasts. Beyond the stereotypes, there are many Andalusias. And yes, one of them (or several) lives off its coasts. In 2025, without going any further, tourism broke his own record of visitors and income: we are talking about 37.9 million visitors and more than 30 billion.
Now the calendar is tight and the problem has become evident, but the urgency cannot make us forget that it was there from the first moment.
Because? As experts remember, the profile of the beaches “it constantly changes in response to changes in transverse sediment transport produced by marine dynamics, especially waves.” This “has never changed in all of history”, what has changed is that in recent decades it has begun to matter to us.
How much we have changed. Well, because the emergence of mass tourism starting in the 1960s turned beaches into a very valuable resource and filled them with investments, infrastructure and capital.
When the beaches began to change, we applied brute force: as we have explained on more than one occasion“the construction of breakwaters, the annual filling of beaches and the construction of coastal infrastructure to ‘secure’ the line have been the daily routine of our relationship with the beaches.”
And as we have more and more investments in them, the problems become more critical and, for this reason, it is more expensive to insure these investments.
But we can’t. It’s a race to nowhere; because, nowhere, can we answer the big questions left by the storms: will we be able to withdraw from the eroded front line in an orderly and fair manner? Will we be able to convert that tourism into something that maintains jobs, families and population? Will we be able to understand that behind these rains lies an entire country with a huge problem or will we continue as before?
Image | Suomi
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