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Urban disaster risk management in Latin American cities
Watanabe Eiji - ELLA, 2013Complex interactions between urban population dynamics, social processes and a wide variety of natural hazards are increasing the vulnerability of Latin American cities to disaster risk. So how are cities in the region aiming to strengthen disaster risk management?
This Guide begins by describing the complex interaction between processes of urbanisation and natural hazards that generate and intensify disaster risk in Latin America. It then provides a panorama of the evolution of urban disaster risk management in the region, including examples of key achievements towards building ...
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Capitalising on public transport: reducing GHG emissions in Latin American cities
Green Short Baptista V. - ELLA, 2013The transport sector is one of the largest contributors to global GHG emissions, both worldwide and in the Latin America region. In response, some cities in Latin America are taking steps to revamp their transport sectors as part of a strategy to mitigate GHG emissions. This Brief begins by discussing the environmental impacts of the transport sector before turning to three key Latin American transportation innovations: Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems; bicycle lanes; and electric taxis. While stronger monitoring systems are still necessary, initial results do point to important mitigation effe ...
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Institutionalising Disaster Risk Management: Latin America’s systems approach
Watanabe Masahiro - ELLA, 2013How are Latin American countries mainstreaming decentralised, democratic and participatory strategies to disaster risk management across public policy?
Through a systems approach, the region is making important advances. Against a backdrop of inadequate disaster preparedness and repeated humanitarian aid interventions, Latin American countries have driven forward the institutionalisation and mainstreaming of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) in public policy. Based on a systems approach, Latin American governments are establishing coherent policy and regulatory frameworks for DRM f ...
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Pushing Through Reform: Lima's Disaster Risk Management Strategy | ELLA
Watanabe Masahiro - ELLA, 2013In recent years, there have been a number of important actions at the institutional level for promoting disaster risk management (DRM) in developing countries. Yet securing a city-level political commitment that ensures the required investment and specific action plans in big cities has remained a pending challenge. This Brief describes how the Municipality of Lima designed and implemented its Disaster Risk Management Strategy, in particular analysing how disaster risk management was successfully positioned through advocacy and communications efforts. This case highlights some particularly int ...
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Latin American experience in combining Disaster Risk Management with poverty reduction
Watanabe Masahiro - ELLA, 2013Extreme weather events have a direct impact on households' welfare, and in particular, the poorest, most socially excluded populations. Increasing frequency and intensity of disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and flooding, is closely linked to the growing vulnerability of households and communities. Thus, the impacts of extreme events on poverty, income, consumption, health and education present a serious challenge to the well-being of these populations, and also produce negative long-term consequences for economic and social development across the region. In order to reduce the impact ...
Disaster risk reduction in urban areas
This document presents the disaster risk reduction (DRR) processes developed in several Latin American cities. It shows the benefits of making risk reduction an integral part of local development. It also highlights the importance of good information for risk assessment, government-civil society collaboration, and links between local, national and regional levels of government. It is intended to offer a wealth of lessons for African and South Asian counterparts embarking on their own urban risk reduction processes.
Efectos del cambio climatico en la costa de América Latina y el Caribe: vulnerabilidad y exposición
CEPAL, 2012Este documento es el primero de una serie de textos que se han elaborado en el marco del Estudio regional de los efectos del cambio climático en la costa de América Latina y el Caribe. La zona de estudio comprende una longitud total de costa de aproximadamente 72.182 km distribuidos en cuatro zonas geográficas: Norteamérica, Centroamérica, Sudamérica y las Islas del Caribe. En el dominio de estudio se han analizado los cambios detectados en las dinámicas costeras, la influencia de la variabilidad climática, información diversa sobre la vulnerabilidad presente en las costas de la región, abarca ...
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Strengthening capacities for climate change adaptation in mountain ecosystems: the Latin American response
This document presents a range of experiences, publications and organisations involved in the strategies used to build capacities for climate change adaptation in the Latin American region, by: (i) improving natural resource conservation; (ii) providing access to new technologies; (iii) capturing traditional knowledge and practices; and (iv) maintaining water resources and agrobiodiversity. It concludes with lessons that could prove useful to other mountain regions of the world.
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Integrated Urban Water Management - Lessons and Recommendations from Regional Experiences in Latin America, Central Asia, and Africa
The purpose of this working paper is to review a set of Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) initiatives and pilot studies funded by the World Bank’s Water Partnership Program (WPP) in Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and Central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
The report is structured into three chapters:
(1)Introduces the main concepts of IUWM;
(2)Reviews the findings of 10 case studies;
(3)Puts forward recommendations to sustain and enhance the scope of IUWM activities;
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Improving small farmers' adaptive capacity in semi-arid regions
In Latin America, as in Africa and Asia, 15-25% of the population lives in semi-arid areas, mostly in small isolated rural communities that are often the most severely affected by climate change. Strategies employed to build adaptive capacity in Brazil’s semi-arid areas focused on improved water supply, management and use, while at the same time promoting access to technology and improved production techniques, all with a focus on knowledge sharing and multi-level collaboration. The lessons from Brazil’s response will be useful for policymakers and community organisations in other semi-arid re ...
Perspectivas de investigación y acción frente al cambio climático en Latinoamérica
Briones Fernando; Red de Estudios Sociales en Prevención de Desastres en América (LA RED) - LA RED, 2012This report explores practical approaches to building urban resilience, focusing on tools and methodologies that can facilitate the use of risk information in public infrastructure investment and urban management decisions as integral elements of reducing disaster and climate risks. It demonstrates that risk-based methodology focused on building urban resilience can be implemented within a range of contexts, with risk assessments as crucial tools for decision-makers. It encourages national, local and city level governments to invest in geospatial risk information, as well as making risk inform ...
The decade of Latin America and the Caribbean, a real opportunity
This book takes a unique look at the current economic and social development trends in Latin America and the Caribbean and the region’s challenges for the future, including those of climate change and 'natural' disaster mitigation. It calls on cities to integrate the management of the possible impacts of climate change as well as the obvious disaster risks into urban planning, and to prepare action plans focused on adaptation methods that include an analysis of the added dangers faced by the urban population, adequate land-use planning, effective water resource management, risk management, the ...
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The Climate and Development Challenge for Latin America and the Caribbean: Options for Climate Resilient Low Carbon Development: executive summary
IDB, 2012Climate change will have broad impacts on human activities and ecosystems during this century. The likely consequences are of such magnitude that the simultaneous need to adapt to the new climate conditions and reduce the carbon footprint to prevent further damage will likely become one of the main driving forces for the global community. Specifically, a rise of 2C over pre-industrial levels is now seen as unavoidable with significant negative effects in economic activities, social conditions and on ecosystems.
This study, a joint IDB-ECLAC-WWF effort, addresses key topics related to th ...
Managing climate extremes and disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean: lessons from the IPCC SREX reports
This summary highlights the key findings of the IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) report including an assessment of the science and the implications of this for society and sustainable development. It includes material directly taken from the SREX report, where the underlying source is clearly referenced, but it also presents synthesis messages that are the views of the authors of this summary and not necessarily those of the IPCC. It is intended to illuminate the SREX report’s vital findings for decision maker ...
Sustainable development 20 years on from the Earth Summit: progress, gaps and strategic guidelines for Latin America and the Caribbean
ECLAC, 2012This report describes the progress achieved in relation to sustainable development since 1992 and the gaps still remaining. It is divided into two parts: (i) of the main traits of development in Latin America and the Caribbean in the past 20 years, particularly those which touch upon economic, social and environmental aspects such as the reduction of exposure to disasters; and (ii) proposed guidelines for moving towards sustainable development in the region.
The guidelines recommend: (i) creating synergies among inclusion, social protection, human security, empowerment of peopl ...
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Efectos del cambio climático en la costa de América Latina y el Caribe
CEPAL, 2012Las zonas costeras son sumamente vulnerables a los potenciales impactos del cambio climático, según diversos estudios e investigaciones de los últimos años. Cuál es la situación de la región en esta materia es lo que busca desentrañar un nuevo informe publicado por la CEPAL.
El estudio "Efectos del cambio climático en la costa de América Latina y el Caribe: Dinámicas, tendencias y variabilidad climática" , preparado en conjunto con el Instituto de Hidráulica Ambiental de la Universidad de Cantabria, España, examina una zona costera de aproximadamente 72.182 kilómetros distribuid ...
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How urban societies can adapt to resource shortage and climate change
Satterthwaite D. - The Royal Society, 2011The increased pressures on the world’s natural resources and ecological systems in the past century, has been accompanied by rapid urban population growth. Urban centres themselves have ecological reputations since they drive unsustainable environmental change, rapidly increasing the use of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions due to increasing per capita consumption levels. They also lead to high levels of resource use and waste generation, causing serious ecological consequences locally, regionally and globally, especially in terms of climate change. However, addressing the issue of urb ...
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Making Integrated Food-Energy Systems (IFES) Work for People and Climate - An Overview
The study draws on specific examples from Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as from some developed countries to show how constraints to successfully integrating production of food and energy crops can be overcome.
Latin America and the Caribbean statistical yearbook = Anuario estadístico de América Latina y el Caribe
ECLAC, 2005-[...], 2011The Yearbook covers demographic, social, economic issues; it also provides data on natural resources and environment.
Vital Climate Change Graphics for Latin America and the Caribbean
GRID Arendal, 2010Climate change – its causes, its global consequences and the magnitude of its expected effects on both ecosystems and human activities – will be one of the greatest challenges of this century. It will significantly alter current patterns of production, distribution and consumption, as well as the overall lifestyles of modern societies. During the present century, countries will be compelled to deal with two simultaneous challenges: adapting to the new climate conditions and working to mitigate them. This will require an international agreement that recognizes historical, but differentiated, re ...
One planet, Many people. Latin America and the Caribbean Atlas of our Changing Environment
UNEP, 2010Latin America and the Caribbean is the richest region of the planet in terms of its biological diversity that ranges from marmosets, jaguars and parrots to orchids, palms and
cacao trees.
This diversity is sustained by the abundance of its ecosystems such as tropical forests and wealth
in natural resources and reflected too in the mosaic of cultures and people that live there. The
environment of Latin America and the Caribbean also reflects the interaction between human
activities and natural processes, both past and present.
These sometimes drama ...
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Up in smoke? Latin America and the Caribbean the threat from climate change to the environment and human development
New Economics Foundation, 2006This report is an in depth analysis of the impacts of changes wrought by climate change and anthropogenic factors in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and the responses of the communities, organisations and governments to these changes. Data on the economic and social impact of climate associated natural disasters such as hurricanes and droughts is presented for countries affected. Besides the negative impacts however, numerous case studies are shared in which local success stories are demonstrated. The overall theme of the document is one of adaptation with strong emphasis on the need for ...
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Statement on the occasion of the closing ceremony of the first post-graduate regional course on operational hydrology in Latin America
IODE Training on Oceanographic Data and Information Management for the Spanish-speaking Countries of Central and South America = Curso de Formación del IODE sobre la gestión de datos e información oceanográficos para los países de habla hispana de América Central y del Sur
UNESCO, 2000 (Training course reports-No. 55)
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Ceremonia de clausura del primer curso regional de postgrado en hidrología operativa en América Latina
IPCC Special Report. The Regional Impacts of Climate Change: An Assessment of Vulnerability : summary for Policymakers
The Special Report explores the potential consequences of changes in climate for ten continental- or subcontinentalscale regions. Because of the uncertainties associated with
regional projections of climate change, the report necessarily takes the approach of assessing sensitivities and vulnerabilities of each region, rather than attempting to provide quantitative predictions of the impacts of climate change. As in the SAR, “vulnerability” is the extent to which climate change may damage or harm a system; it is a function of both sensitivity to climate and the ability to adapt to new co ...
Rapport spécial du GIEC. Incidences de l'évolution du climat dans les régions: Evaluation de la vulnérabilité : résumé à l'intention des décideurs
Organisation météorologique mondiale (OMM); Zinyowera Marufu C.; Moss Richard H.; et al. - GIEC, 1997Le présent rapport examine les conséquences éventuelles de l'évolution du climat dans dix régions continentales et sous-continentales. Les incertitudes entourant les prévisions régionales des changements climatiques ont contraint les auteurs à évaluer la sensibilité et
la vulnérabilité de chaque région, plutôt que de tenter de chiffrer les incidences prévues. Comme dans le SAR, la vulnérabilité définit la mesure dans laquelle l'évolution du climat risque d'endommager un système quelconque ou de lui nuire; elle est fonction de sa sensibilité au climat et de sa capacité à s'adapter à de n ...
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La función de los servicios meteorológicos en el desarrollo económico de America Latina : actas de la conferencia técnica regional de la OMM y de la CEPAL, Santiago, Chile, 30 de noviembre - 4 de diciembre de 1970
Organización Meteorológica Mundial (OMM); Comisión Económica para América Latina (CEPAL) - OMM, 1972 (OMM-No. 314)
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