Urban adaptation in Latin America

Climate change will add to existing risks and stresses from extreme weather in Latin America. The number of weather-related disasters more than doubled between 1970 and 2005. This included two intense episodes of El Niño, which, together with land use changes, resulted in floods, droughts, landslides and other disasters. Many deaths resulted and the population, infrastructure and economic activities of both urban and rural areas were affected.

There is, of course, great variation between different urban centres within Latin America, in the risks they will face and in their capacities to adapt. Latin America has a long history of adapting to the impacts of climate variability, including extreme weather events. This includes some examples of autonomous adaptation such as better quality housing and improved house designs. Some adaptation is policy driven, but most is through disaster response rather than reducing risks and addressing the factors making poor people vulnerable.

The region's main arid and semi-arid areas face water shortage problems because precipitation has decreased, and this is likely to continue. The poor quality or absence of infrastructure in urban centres, and the lack of maintenance, have been key causes of dams failing and public hospitals, schools, bridges and highways collapsing during weather-related disasters. Only a very small proportion of housing is covered by disaster insurance.

The lack of transparency in allocating contracts for public works frequently leads to corruption and poor quality infrastructure and buildings. Many urban governments also have antagonistic relationships with low-income groups; for instance, refusing to provide infrastructure and services in informal settlements, even when these house 20-40 percent of a city's population.

Decentralisation of responsibilities to urban authorities should have helped address these issues, but often it has not been accompanied by increased revenues or revenue-raising capacity. In most countries, the reform of the state during the 1990s weakened many of the mechanisms that support adaptive capacity as the state withdrew from public transport, health care and public works.

However, there are examples of urban governments that have key roles as risk reducers, providing necessary infrastructure and services, guiding settlements development and regulating industries, transport and other hazardous activities that can produce disasters. The work of La Red (the network of social studies for the prevention of disasters in Latin America) has shown how good urban governance is central to adaptation and how much it can reduce risks and vulnerabilities to extreme weather events.

But adaptation requires addressing not only the risks but also people's extreme vulnerabilities to these risks. Adaptive capacity can be increased by:

• better and more stable incomes for poor people
• good education and health care, and good quality housing and urban infrastructure.

Adaptation also means ensuring actions to reduce climate change risks are integrated into the everyday practices of urban planning, land use regulation, water management and infrastructure investment.

Patricia Romero-Lankao
SERE Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, P O Box 3000, Boulder, Colorado 80307-3000, USA
prlankao@ucar.edu