Recently devastating floods in the Spanish town/city of Valencia gained global attention in news media. The above view of the town as seen and recorded in 1563 shows the medieval walled town on the bank of the River Turia and three multi-arched bridges spanning the River to the built-up area on the other bank. In the middle distance left the mouth of the River where it floed/flows into the western coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in the far distance the mountains where, presumably, the source of the River lies. The immediate environment is level land showing that the city evolved on the flood plain of the lower River Turia, with fertile alluvial soils being a likely attraction. So the city lay on lowland beside a river flowing from distant mountains, near the coast and at roughly sea level. Inevitably Valencia has had a history of flooding and is particularly threatened by rising sea level.
What other urban area lies on level ground just above sea level beside the lower reaches of a tidal river and on the coast (in this case an estuary)? It is, of course, Kingston upon Hull, Hollar’s bird’s eye view of Hull compiled in 1641 looking very much like the view seen above. I’m not sure if the lower reaches of the River Turia are tidal, as is so with the River Hull, but the tidal range in the western Mediterranean is much smaller than in the Humber Estuary. The source(s) of the River Hull lie in the foothills of the Yorkshire Wolds west of Driffield so, unlike the tributaries of the River Ouse flowing from the Pennines, seasonal increases in volumes of fresh water flowing downstream are not so pronounced. Parts of the Old Town of Hull were regularly flooded before the Tidal Barrier was built in the 1980s and areas of the city parallel to the Humber bank were flooded in the tidal surge of 2013. Other parts of Hull were extensively flooded as a result of heavy continuous rainfall in 2007. Recently Hull’s flood defences have been greatly enhanced (as recoded in earlier blogs), possibly more so than those in Valencia.
If a new town was being planned in the 21st century it would never be built in a location like that of Valencia and Kingston upon Hull!