Regional government relaunches 20-km Montnegre river green corridor through Mutxamel

A river corridor is easy to picture as a park project. But this one is really about flood control first, and public space second. The Valencian regional government moved the Montnegre corridor forward again on May 8 by formally bringing in the University of Alicante to help design it, after earlier spring meetings had already put money and first works on the table. The idea is to turn a 20-kilometer stretch of riverbed into something that can absorb water better, connect towns, and still be usable as a green route. ### What actually changed this week? The new step is the University of Alicante’s role. The regional government said the university’s Water Institute will provide scientific support for both the design and execution of the corridor, which gives the project a more technical backbone than a normal local greenway plan. That matters because this is not just about paving a path — it is about reshaping a flood-prone river environment without making it worse. (comunica.gva.es) ### Where does the corridor go? The route follows the Montnegre riverbed through six municipalities: Tibi, Xixona, Mutxamel, El Campello, Alicante, and Sant Joan d’Alacant. One of the headline elements is a 20-kilometer cycling corridor between Tibi and El Campello, but the broader intervention covers the river space as it passes those towns. So Mutxamel is central to the story, but it is not a standalone local scheme — it is a multi-town river project. (comunica.gva.es) ### Why is a “green corridor” also a flood project? Because the riverbed is doing two jobs at once. In dry periods, it can function as a recreational and ecological corridor. In heavy rain, it becomes infrastructure — basically a buffer that helps channel and manage sudden flows. Regional officials are explicitly framing it as an “anti-flood” intervention, not just a beautification plan. That is the big shift in how the project is being sold. (comunica.gva.es) ### How much money is behind it? The first announced funding package is €3.5 million. That was attached to the March 12 launch of the first actions, which include adapting the river channel to make the route possible and reduce flood risk. For a 20-kilometer corridor, that is not final build-out money for every future layer of work, but it is enough to show this has moved beyond concept art and cooperation agreements. (comunica.gva.es) ### Why does the University matter so much here? River projects can fail when they treat water like a landscaping problem. The University of Alicante’s Water Institute gives the government hydrology expertise, which should help with things like flow behavior, restoration choices, and how public access fits inside a working floodplain. In plain English — they are trying to avoid building a nice-looking path that becomes a liability in the next extreme storm. (diputacionalicante.es) ### Is this really a relaunch? Basically, yes. The corridor has been around for years in environmental recovery plans and municipal agreements, including a 2022 cooperation pact involving the affected towns, the provincial council, and the university. But the project gained a new political life after the regional government joined the push, tied it to resilience planning, and started assigning money and technical phases in 2026. (comunica.gva.es) ### Why now? The answer is climate risk. The regional government has folded the corridor into Plan Endavant, a broader recovery and resilience strategy created after the dana flooding disaster. That makes the Montnegre scheme part of a bigger rethink — less “nice river walk,” more “how do we make exposed territory safer before the next extreme-weather hit?” (ayto.mutxamel.org) ### Bottom line? This is a river-engineering project wearing the clothes of a greenway. If it works, Mutxamel and the other towns get a public corridor, a restored landscape, and a better flood buffer in the same strip of land. The hard part now is execution — turning years of plans into a river space that is both usable and resilient. (comunica.gva.es) (esdiario.com)