An Integrated Plan to Sustainably Enable the City of Riohacha (Colombia) to Cope with Increasing Urban Flooding, while Improving Its Environmental Setting

Andrea Nardini and Marcelo Gomes Miguez
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Andrea Nardini: Fundación CREACUA-Centro Recuperación Ecosistemas ACUÁticos, Riohacha 440001, Colombia
Marcelo Gomes Miguez: PEU-POLI & COPPE, UFRJ-Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-909, Brazil

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 3, 1-29

Abstract: This paper describes the emblematic situation of a Colombian coastal town seriously threatened by flooding and presents the whole process undertaken to elaborate an integrated action plan to cope with this problem, while improving the natural and built environment. Such a plan is a product of a project, winner of a National Colombian call for climate change initiatives, which included a thorough modeling process based on the MODCEL urban flood model, an articulated participatory process including a specific structured inquiry mainly aiming at providing data suited for model calibration, a creative phase to propose candidate alternative solutions and a quite integrated evaluation exercise which supported the transparent choice of the most sustainable plan alternative. The approach and the experience can be valuable for many other cases in Colombia and around the world, particularly in developing or emerging countries where data are scarce. The added value of this paper lies in showing a whole, integrated process, well articulated, where all pieces are indispensable but simple enough to be replicated in many cases. It merges the fundamental participatory component with an equally fundamental technical-scientific component of characterization, modeling and integrated evaluation. The multiple steps of the process are illustrated with sufficient detail to allow the reader to grasp what was actually done and why, providing a practical guide for other cases.

Keywords: urban flooding; integrated urban planning; urban green adaptation; natural water retention measures; mathematical modeling and GIS algorithms; participatory process; multicriteria evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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