Urban development versus wetland loss in a coastal Latin American city: Lessons for sustainable land use planning

Rojas, Carolina; Munizaga, Juan; Rojas, Octavio; Martı́nez, Carolina; Pino, Joan

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.09.036

Cited by 126 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Historical analysis of urban development is key for enhanced understanding of flood risk evolution (Cortès et al, ; Di Baldassarre et al, ; Di Baldassarre et al, ). Our results evidenced a lack of appropriate territorial planning and flood risk management that allowed the city to grow over flood prone areas including wetlands and paleochannels in agreement with findings by Rojas, Mardones, Rojas, Martínez, and Flores (); Rojas, Munizaga, Rojas, Martínez, and Pino (). Wetlands usually act as buffer zones mitigating the effects of floods and paleochannels serve as river corridors that attenuate the magnitude of extreme floods evacuating excess runoff and should therefore be protected (Spaliviero, ) and directly used for territorial planning.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

A paleo‐hydro‐geomorphological perspective on urban flood risk assessment

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Brox‐Escudero

González

et al. 2019

Hydrological Processes

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Comprehensive flood risk assessment requires enhanced understanding of the coevolution of the river and its floodplain occupation. Paleoflood analysis to determine flood prone areas in combination with numerical simulations to estimate flood hazard and a historical analysis of urban development to consider the evolution of exposure to floods is a possible way forward. The well-documented 2006 extreme flood in the Biobío River system and the impacted metropolitan area of Concepción, Chile (~1 million inhabitants) was used as a complex scenario to test the reliability of the proposed method. Results showed that flood prone areas determined with hydro-geomorphological methods are consistent with those computed with numerical models based on detailed digital elevation models. The flood generation via superficial flow pathways resulting in inundated areas could explain that rivers tend to reactivate paleochannels in extreme conditions. Urban development progressively increased the city's exposure to floods from 0 ha in 1,751 to 1,363 ha in 2006 evidencing a lack of appropriate flood risk management. The 100-year peak discharge resulted in a high flood risk for about 5% of the total urbanized area of Concepción, and higher discharges are likely to reactivate a paleochannel that crosses the current city centre. We conclude that the proposed paleo hydro-geomorphology, hydraulic, and urban planning multimethod approach is a necessary tool to enhance understanding of flood risk in complex scenarios to improve flood risk management. K E Y W O R D SBiobío River, flood risk management, hydro-geomorphological approach, numerical modelling, paleoflood

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

A paleo‐hydro‐geomorphological perspective on urban flood risk assessment

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Brox‐Escudero

González

et al. 2019

Hydrological Processes

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“…Bearing in mind the coastal uplift tendency and its possible repercussions for SLR scenarios in Chile, a potential change in storm surge frequency can also modify the frequency or magnitude of floods, as has been discussed by Papatrony and Terefenko [21] in Poland. While in the case of the Andalién River, the worst-case sea level rise scenario (SLS 5 ) flooded mainly salt marsh and river plain areas, the situation is critical in light of real estate pressure; indeed, in the 2004-2014 period 10% of the salt march area has been lost, and a decrease of up to 32% is expected [73]. Historically, urbanization processes on the Biobío coast have occurred in fragile coastal environments characterized by the development of paleobays and coastal wetlands, resulting in natural risks, environmental degradation, and socio-territorial imbalances [14,29,30,73].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Simulations carried out by Broekx et al [74] showed that structural mitigation measures (dykes) alone were unable to impede or decrease flooding, and in some cases they caused a change in the flood zone distribution. It is proposed that an intelligent combination of dykes and flood plains can offer greater benefits at lower costs [74,75]; however, the cost would be even lower through the protection and conservation of wetlands to increase the resilience of cities in the face of this type of natural hazard [73].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flooding in Central Chile: Implications of Tides and Sea Level Increase in the 21st Century

et al. 2018

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Coastal floods have become a serious problem on a global scale, increasing in frequency or magnitude due to natural conditions, and exacerbated by socioeconomic factors. This investigation analyzes the role of tides and average sea levels on the development and intensity of flooding in the lower section of the Andalién River, located toward the southern extreme of the coast of central Chile and northeast of Concepción, the country’s second most populous city. Numerical simulation (1D) was used in five modeled scenarios to determine potential flooding areas, demonstrating the influence of tides in flooding processes as far away as 7.3 km from the river mouth, which is reinforced by the fact that 57% of flooding events occur during syzygies. Further, a climate change-induced sea level rise of 60 cm from current levels by the end of the 21st century would produce a 4% increase in flood-prone areas, with 17% of flooding affecting the current built-up area and 83% of floodplains and salt marshes. Efforts must be made to protect or conserve these latter areas in order to increase natural resilience, given the high costs of implementing structural measures to protect future residential areas.

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“…Emphasis is placed on coordinated approaches to better facilitate collaborative working. While concepts such as integrated coastal management and integrated coastal area level change (e.g., Dwarakish et al 2009;Bosch et al 2014); and urban development and coastal wetland loss (Wu et al 2018;Rojas et al 2019). In addition, endeavours such as Marine Spatial Planning (Ouellette and Getine 2016) and sustainable urban development at the coast (Corbane et al 2008;Ban et al 2015) actively incorporate multiple data sources, including EO data, to generate potential solutions to increasingly complex issues.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Earth observation applications for coastal sustainability: potential and challenges for implementation

Politi¹,

Paterson

Scarrott

et al. 2019

Anthropocene Coasts

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The coast is home to unique ecosystems, where complex ecological processes take place through the interaction of terrestrial, aquatic, atmospheric, and human landscapes. However, there are considerable knowledge and data gaps in achieving effective and future change-proof sustainable management of coastal zones around the world due to both technical and social barriers, as well as governance challenges. Currently, the role of Earth observation (EO) in addressing many of the recognised information gaps is small and under-utilised. While EO can provide much of the spatiotemporal information required for historical analysis and current status mapping, and offers the advantage of global coverage; its uptake can be limited by technical and methodological challenges associated mostly with lack of capacity and infrastructure, product accuracy and accessibility, costs, and institutional acceptance. While new initiatives and recent technological progress in the EO and information technology arena aim to tackle some of these issues so that EO products can be more easily used by non-EO experts, uptake is still limited. This paper discusses how EO can potentially inform transformative practices of planning in the coastal water zone, by using examples to demonstrate the EO potential in providing information relevant to decision-making framed by international agreements, such as the United Nations Agenda 2030, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Sendai Framework for Risk Reduction. By presenting evidence for how EO can contribute to innovative opportunities and data synergies at scale, the paper discusses opportunities and challenges for a more solution-led approach to sustainable coastal management.

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Urban development versus wetland loss in a coastal Latin American city: Lessons for sustainable land use planning

Cited by 126 publications

References 45 publications

A paleo‐hydro‐geomorphological perspective on urban flood risk assessment

A paleo‐hydro‐geomorphological perspective on urban flood risk assessment

Flooding in Central Chile: Implications of Tides and Sea Level Increase in the 21st Century

Earth observation applications for coastal sustainability: potential and challenges for implementation

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