After Storm Gloria devastated one of the Mediterranean’s largest wetlands in January, an urgent search began for solutions to protect it from further floods and creeping water levels. The low-lying Ebro delta suffered most, with waves inundating rice fields and irrigation channels with saltwater as far as two miles inland. Industry has reduced essential sediment from reaching the delta. The sediment is essential for local ecology and protecting shorelines from erosion. Some shorelines are receding over five metres annually. Gloria badly damaged mussel and oyster farms, which sustained losses of £1.3 million. ‘No one has ever seen a storm like this here’, said one farmer. Houses were flooded. ‘Imagine the impact of nine-metre waves and 100km per hour winds hitting a region at sea level,’ said the president of the Ebro delta. For decades the delta’s fragile ecology has suffered from political neglect and over-exploitation of the river.