Itinerary 4. The Vallespir Landscape: Scars of Deluge and Hydrological Disaster
Abstract
Itinerary 4 follows the Tech valley, with opportunities to observe Hercynian and Alpine structures as well as geomorphological features on the southern flank of the Axial Zone (e.g., two generations of pediment surfaces, P1 and P2). An even more striking feature is the geomorphological record of high-intensity meteorological events from the past years and centuries. The Vallespir lies in the humid enclave of Catalonia, i.e., in a small, semi-enclosed area sheltered from westerly weather systems by the mountain range but open to overheated and humidity-laden air masses from the adjacent Mediterranean, which penetrate via the low-lying Empordà graben and get funnelled into the Tech valley where they promote thunderstorm clouds. Thus, although autumn storms periodically generate major hydrological extremes as elsewhere in Roussillon, unlike adjacent areas summers are also rarely dry. These paroxysms have left scars in the landscape as well as in the collective memory of its residents.
