The economic and spatial pressures associated with increasing urbanization frequently drive the poor to occupy marginalized lands prone to natural and man-made disasters. Residing on inexpensive, but dangerous land such as steep deforested slopes, flood plains, or areas where drainage is problematic due to soil composition or the proliferation of accumulated waste, the urban poor are the most vulnerable to the effects of landslides, mudslides, floods, earthquakes and other disasters. Contributing to the damage of such disasters is a lack of risk awareness among the urban poor, low quality of dwelling construction, lack of professional urban planning and an absence of protective infrastructure in the communities.

 

Urban authorities need access to accurate and sufficient information detailing the threat of disasters to cities of the developing world, followed by the implementation of programs targeted at reducing the risk to low-income communities through planning and prevention. In support of such initiatives, the Urban Poverty and Environment (UPE) Program has supported work for the development of an environmental risk assessment tool.

 

SIGA – Integrated System for Environmental Management – is a support instrument for municipal management and territorial planning, aimed at risk prevention and reduction in vulnerable urban areas.

 

SIGA is based on a multidisciplinary methodological approach that combines natural, social and economic variables to enable users to better understand and plan their territory so as to reduce the levels of environmental risk. What is innovative about SIGA is that it has evolved from a methodology  using only natural and physical variables, to an approach to potential risk mapping that also integrates socio-economic variables. 

“The issue of risk management and the handling of vulnerable populations needs to be something appearing on the day-to-day agenda of local governments.”    

(V. Manuel González, Project Manager of FEMICA- BID-EMS project )

 

“I think it´s always possible to plan ahead for a better response to flooding.   What you discover is that there was insufficient information and probably also we didn´t have enough programmes to enable us to cope with this situation”

(Ezequiel Martín Balbarrey, Mayor of Santa Fe – Argentina

[1] State of the World’s Cities 2001, p76