Red alert for extreme rains in Catalonia: suspended trains, affected roads, and risk of flooding

The activation of the INUNCAT plan (Special Emergency Plan for Floods in Catalonia) is framed within the general civil protection system: it is a special autonomous plan against a specific risk (floods), approved by the Government of the Generalitat and developed under the state and Catalan civil protection legislation. Legally, “activating the plan” means moving from the ordinary situation to one of the operational phases foreseen (usually pre-alert, alert, and emergency) and putting into operation the organization and resources established in the plan itself.

General legal framework

Although each special plan has its own text, the basic requirements to activate it are supported by two normative levels:

• The state civil protection framework (Law of the National Civil Protection System and development regulations), which defines what an emergency situation is, the role of autonomous communities, coordination with the State, and types of plans (territorial and special).
• The Catalan civil protection legislation and the decrees and agreements that approve the special plans (including the flood plan). This regulation assigns competencies to the Government, the department responsible for interior/civil protection, and municipalities, and regulates the minimum content of the plans, their command structure, and activation phases.

On this basis, the specific INUNCAT text specifies the technical and procedural thresholds that define when to move from one phase to another and which authority must declare each situation.

What is understood by activation of INUNCAT

In practice, activating INUNCAT involves:

• Officially recognizing a relevant risk situation or emergency due to floods.
• Starting the command and coordination foreseen (operational coordination center, monitoring committees, etc.).
• Mobilizing the public means and resources defined in the plan and coordinating municipal, supra-municipal, and, if applicable, state resources.
• Issuing warnings and recommendations to the population through the established channels.

Typical phases and material requirements

Special plans like INUNCAT usually differentiate, at least, three main levels:

• Pre-alert: mainly based on technical information and predictions. It is usually declared when:
  • Meteorological services issue warnings for heavy rain or phenomena that may cause rises.
  • Hydrological monitoring systems detect flows or levels above reference values, although no damage has yet occurred.
  • Possible impact on flood-prone areas is forecasted, without immediate impact.
  Legally, pre-alert allows activating enhanced monitoring and preparation mechanisms, maintaining internal coordination between administrations.
• Alert: usually declared when the risk changes from potential to probable or imminent, or there are already minor incidents:
  • Localized overflows or water pools with moderate impact on infrastructure and traffic are occurring.
  • Relevant impact on urban centers, essential services, or industrial areas is forecasted.
  In this phase, coordination with municipalities intensifies, municipal plans are activated when they exist, and stricter recommendations are issued to the population.
• Emergency (often with several degrees): declared when there are significant actual damages or a very high and immediate risk:
  • Floods affecting people, homes, hospitals, main roads, or basic networks.
  • Need for evacuations, rescues, service cuts, or massive resource mobilization.
  Each emergency degree is usually associated with the territorial extent of the damage, intensity, number of affected people, and the need to request support from other administrations.

Competent authorities for activation

In the usual scheme of autonomous plans:

• The Government of the Generalitat is the one who approves the plan and defines the command structure. The INUNCAT text itself designates a plan director.
• Activation at its different levels (pre-alert, alert, emergency) usually corresponds to:
  • The plan director (often the head of Interior or the competent civil protection body), assisted by civil protection and emergency technical services.
  • The mayors, within the scope of their municipal flood risk action plans, to declare local emergency situations and coordinate resources in their municipality.
• When the magnitude of the emergency exceeds the autonomous capacity or affects several communities, coordination with the State and possible activation of state instruments may be required, always in accordance with the Law of the National Civil Protection System.

In summary, the legal requirements to activate INUNCAT combine: a) the existence of a measurable risk or damage with technical parameters (predictions, flows, real impact); b) the formal declaration of the corresponding phase by the authority designated in the plan; and c) the compliance with the state and Catalan civil protection framework, which regulates the relationship between the Generalitat, municipalities, and, if applicable, the General State Administration.

In Barcelona, municipal emergency plans (strictly speaking, municipal civil protection plans) are processed within the general civil protection framework of Catalonia, defined by the Llei 4/1997, de protecció civil de Catalunya, developed by the Decret 155/2014, de 25 de novembre, and supervised by the Comissió de Protecció Civil de Catalunya (regulated by the Decret 291/1999). The Municipal Charter of Barcelona strengthens the city's autonomy but does not alter this basic scheme: the City Council must comply with the autonomous regulations.

1. Types of plans at the municipal level

Law 4/1997 generally distinguishes between:

• Territorial plans: general scope over a territory (at the municipal level, basic municipal emergency plans).
• Special plans: focused on specific risks (floods, snowfalls, chemical risk, etc.).
• Self-protection plans: prepared by owners of centers, activities, and services to manage their own emergencies.

Decret 155/2014 specifies these figures for the local level and establishes that municipalities can and, in certain cases, must have:

• Basic municipal emergency plan.
• Municipal action plans derived from the autonomous special plans that affect them.
• Specific municipal plans for specific risks not covered by the special plans.

2. Single municipal civil protection document

One of the keys of Decret 155/2014 is the creation of the Document únic de protecció civil municipal, which groups all municipal civil protection plans (basic, action, and specific) into a single instrument. This document includes, at minimum:

• Municipal civil protection organization, coordination centers, and activation procedures.
• Risk and vulnerability analysis of the municipality.
• Operational procedures by risk (levels, warnings, evacuation, confinement, relation with higher-level plans, etc.).
• Implementation programs, drills, maintenance, and review.
• Specific cartography, contact directories, and catalogs of means and resources.

In Barcelona, this document is prepared with greater technical capacity than in other municipalities but must respect the same minimum structure to be homologated by the Generalitat.

3. Who promotes and drafts the plans

Law 4/1997 assigns municipalities their own civil protection competencies within the general system structure. In practice, in Barcelona:

• The initiative corresponds to the City Council (mayor's office and the area responsible for security and emergencies).
• The technical drafting is carried out by specialized municipal services (civil protection, firefighters, technical services, urban planning, etc.), following the technical guides that the Directorate General of Civil Protection of the Generalitat must approve to facilitate municipal work.
• The municipal civil protection commission, if it exists, issues a prior report on the document.

4. Processing and approval in the Barcelona City Council

According to article 4 of Decret 155/2014, the municipal procedure is essentially as follows:

• Public information: the draft Single Municipal Civil Protection Document is submitted for public information, so that citizens and entities can make allegations.
• Report from the municipal civil protection commission (if it exists): prior to approval.
• Approval by the Plenary: municipal civil protection plans are approved by the City Council Plenary, not by the Mayor's Office or the Government Board, precisely because of their strategic relevance and transversal impact.

In Barcelona, due to its size and complexity, this processing is usually accompanied by prior coordination work with districts, emergency services, infrastructure operators, and other key actors.

5. Homologation by the Generalitat of Catalonia

After plenary approval, the Single Document is sent to the Comissió de Protecció Civil de Catalunya (the highest collegiate body in civil protection, consultative, coordinating, and homologating, according to Decret 291/1999). The process is:

• The Directorate General of Civil Protection of the Generalitat examines the plan and, if applicable, makes technical observations.
• The Civil Protection Commission of Catalonia decides on the homologation of the municipal plans included in the Single Document.
• Once homologated, they are registered in the General Register of Civil Protection Plans.

Only after this homologation is the municipal plan fully integrated into the Catalan civil protection system and coordinated with the territorial and special autonomous and state plans.

6. Periodic update and review

Decret 155/2014 requires that plans:

• Be updated when circumstances change (new risks, urban changes, critical infrastructures, etc.). In these cases, it is enough for the City Council to approve the update and communicate it to the Directorate General of Civil Protection, which forwards it to the Commission for information.
• Be reviewed every four years. The review is processed and homologated with the same procedure as the initial approval (municipal Plenary + Commission homologation), accompanied by a report on the implementation and maintenance of the plan in the previous period.

Additionally, the regulation enables the Generalitat to provide technical assistance to municipalities that request it, something particularly relevant for small municipalities but also useful for a complex city like Barcelona when updating standards and technical guides.

The State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) is the National Meteorological Service and, as such, has the main responsibility for producing official meteorological information and issuing warnings of adverse meteorological phenomena for the entire Spanish territory. At the autonomous community level, this competence is articulated through a combination of basic state powers, civil protection competencies of the autonomous communities, and formal collaboration mechanisms.

Basic framework: State meteorological service and civil protection

The Royal Decree 186/2008, of February 8, approves the Statute of AEMET and specifies its functions as the State meteorological service, within the framework of the state competence over the meteorological service derived from article 149.1.20 of the Constitution. According to this Statute, AEMET is responsible for:

• The management of the State public meteorology service, aimed at meeting the basic meteorological and climatological information needs of society.
• The production, supply, and dissemination of meteorological information of general interest to citizens throughout the national territory.
• The issuance of warnings and forecasts of meteorological phenomena that may affect the safety of people and material goods.
• Specific support to public institutions competent in civil protection, defense, and security.

These warnings are the official reference for the National Civil Protection System, structured by the Law 17/2015, of July 9, of the National Civil Protection System, which is repeatedly invoked in subsequent regulations related to emergencies caused by extreme meteorological phenomena.

Territorial organization of AEMET and presence in autonomous communities

The AEMET Statute foresees a territorial organization that facilitates its action at the autonomous community level. Specifically, it establishes that:

• There will be an AEMET Delegation in each autonomous community, considered a non-integrated service, to which the agency's offices, observatories, and other dependencies in that territorial scope are assigned.
• These delegations assume both the institutional representation of AEMET before the autonomous community and the provision of meteorological services in its territory, following efficiency criteria and not only territorial delimitation.

This territorial implementation allows warnings and forecasts of adverse phenomena to be produced and updated with a high degree of regional detail, in direct coordination with autonomous civil protection services.

Relationship with autonomous meteorological services

Several autonomous communities have created their own autonomous meteorological services. The AEMET Statute expressly foresees cooperation with them. In particular, it establishes that the Agency may:

• Sign collaboration agreements with autonomous communities on specific matters, within the scope of their respective competencies.
• Constitute, if applicable, a collaboration and meeting body with autonomous meteorological services, to participate in common initiatives or joint action plans in meteorology and climatology.

On this basis, the functional scheme is usually:

• AEMET issues the official warnings of adverse meteorological phenomena for the entire territory, which serve as a reference for the entire National Civil Protection System.
• The autonomous meteorological services, where they exist, collaborate in the interpretation, territorial detail, and dissemination of that information and produce additional products adapted to the needs of their own civil protection system.
• The activation of emergency plans and operational decisions (infrastructure closures, evacuation orders, etc.) correspond to the autonomous and local civil protection authorities, who rely on AEMET warnings and the advice of their own services.

Participation of AEMET in state civil protection plans

AEMET also appears as an essential actor in the State Civil Protection Plans approved by agreement of the Council of Ministers for different risks (volcanic, floods, tsunamis, etc.), published by resolutions in the Official State Gazette. In them, it is usually assigned the role of:

• Reference technical service for meteorological or hydrometeorological monitoring.
• Provider of information and warnings to state and autonomous civil protection coordination centers.
• Support for preventive planning and risk scenario evaluation.

In summary, the competence over meteorological alerts is articulated as follows: the State, through AEMET, maintains the basic competence and the official voice in issuing warnings of adverse meteorological phenomena; the autonomous communities, holders of civil protection and emergency competencies, rely on that information, complement it through their own meteorological services when they have them, and decide the specific protection measures for the population, within the framework of state and autonomous civil protection plans.