info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis
Cultivating resilience towards flood safety: local knowledge for landscape design
Autor
Arellano Jaimerena, Begoña
Institución
Resumen
Informal settlements are present in many hazardous locations around the globe, and their inhabitants usually represent the most vulnerable segment of the population. Therefore, when a disaster occurs, they are usually the most affected. Their vulnerability can be understood in terms of a lack of community resilience, with lack or absence of resources to cope with the disaster. In addition, when the landscape is not resilient, the negative effects are even greater. Desert landscapes, like the Atacama Desert, have very low resilience, being environmentally very vulnerable, with sensitive ecosystems, where even minimal changes can cause major disruptions.
On March 2015, and again on May 2017, Atacama was affected by an unusual hydro meteorological event, causing intensive precipitation in a short period of time that prompted a flood along the Copiapó River valley. The flood uncovered existing risks that had not been adequately managed, making the inhabitants of informal settlements even more vulnerable. While a lot has been done about flood preventive design, informal settlements are often not addressed directly because of confronting political issues. It may be argued that informal settlements are illegal and they should be eradicated, however their presence responds to a societal issue of inequality that cannot be ignored. Since informal settlements are a reality, it is important to address them in their current state, regardless of other long-term strategies of eradication and relocation. Taking into consideration the proliferation of these settlements around the world, and how its inhabitants cope and adapt to floods, it is relevant to reflect on the knowledge coming from them. This research attempts to explore the potential contributions of local knowledge from informal settlers for landscape design towards flood mitigation, recognizing the complexities of working with informality, uncertainty and the ephemeral.