Territorial and Urban Planning for integrated watershed management (France, Argentina, Chile)

TUPIWAM – Territorial and Urban Planning for integrated watershed management

Project coordonators 

• Liber Martín, Universidad de Mendoza, Argentina
• Natalia Escudero Peña, Universidad de Chile, Chile
• Anne Grillet-Aubert, Laboratoire UMR AUSser, CNRS, France

Presentation

« The current development model, based mainly on quantitative parameters of economic growth, does not consider negative externalities on the environment, as well as the economic and social equity among people, making it unsustainable.
The extreme meteorological phenomena (e.g., increase in heat waves, water shortage, melting of glaciers, rising of sea levels, more acidic and warmer oceans, heavy rains and floods, increased storms and hurricanes among others) that have taken place and that they will continue to be produced by Climate Change on our planet (product of the prevailing development model), seriously affect people´s lives in cities and countryside. Given these events, it is urgent to rethink territorial and urban planning to also consider those effects.
In Chile, some of the most serious environmental problems at present are the mega-drought affecting the central-southern part of the country (for more than 10 years) and urban sprawl over agricultural areas. In addition, the Province of Mendoza (Argentina) is experiencing a serious water shortage and the lack of control in urban-territorial planning has led to the invasion of the foothills. In the French context, there are several problems related to water, such as floods, drought, landslides, among others.
Before these realities, the aim is to identify the essential criteria that will allow territorial and urban planning based on integrated watershed management, from the experiences of France, Argentina and Chile. »