PERC Disaster forensics on the catastrophic 2024 DANA flood event in Valencia, Spain

Extreme rainfall and flash flooding are increasing in frequency and severity across the Mediterranean region. Such events cause loss of life, disrupt livelihoods, damage critical infrastructure and ecosystems, lead to cascading effects across society, the economy and nature, and generate long-lasting social, economic and environmental impacts. In October 2024, a severe DANA(Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos, an atmospheric cut-off low) event affected the province of Valencia, Spain, producing very intense rainfall totals and widespread flooding that overwhelmed urban, fluvial and emergency response systems and caused immense human tragedy. The event was dubbed one of the worst floods in Europe although there are striking similarities to the Central European floods following the cut-off low "Bernd" in 2021. This shows that still, even in extreme flood disasters, limited attention is often paid to how existing technical, institutional, and community-based capacities can be better enabled to reduce risk and strengthen resilience. Flood post-event analyses tend to focus on meteorological severity and emergency response performance, while broader learning on how risk is created, governed and reduced across the full disaster risk management (DRM) cycle remains insufficiently developed. For this DANA event, we have applied the Post Event Review Capability (PERC) forensic analysis methodology. It has produced a series of findings based on a comprehensive post-event review of the October–November 2024 DANA in Valencia, Spain. The event resulted in extensive human, economic and environmental impacts across a densely populated and highly exposed region. The analysis examined how DRM systems functioned in practice, identifying successes, limitations and missed opportunities across preparedness, response, recovery and corrective as well as prospective risk reduction, jointly forming the elements of the DRM cycle. The findings highlight the critical importance of anticipatory governance, people-centred early warning systems and the structured integration of community and psychosocial dimensions in flood risk management, offering lessons that are locally actionable and relevant to other flood-prone regions facing similar climate-driven risk dynamics, of which there are plenty across the Mediterranean region and beyond.