Patrimonio cultural inmaterial de interés geológico: 300 paremias españolas relativas a inundaciones, avenidas y lluvias torrenciales

Ancient civilizations already knew and left in writing the serious risk of flooding. From the Middle Age in Spain, sayings are generated as expressions of popular wisdom. This paper collects, after reading thousands of sayings studied in selected books between 1614 and 2004, three kinds of proverbs and proverbial sayings (proverbs in general): 1, those which relate to the severity of floods along the rivers; 2, those which demostrate knowledge of the risk of ravines, which are dry riverbeds, which after a long time can become raging flash flood; and 3, the danger of very heavy rainfall in a day or an hour, typical of the Mediterranean climate. According to the collected sayings, the months of the year more prone to these events are studied, as well as what specific rivers and Spanish localities are cited one or more times.