In addition, the Pascuales, Tarqui, Letamendi and Febres Cordero parishes are especially sensitive to the ravages of climate change.
A study by the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) states that in cities like GuayaquilIn Ecuador, horizontal urban sprawl and invasions cause very serious problems such as deforestation and this contributes to exacerbating the anticipated impacts of climate change such as floods, runoff, risk of erosion and landslides.
“Formal and informal growth in Guayaquil is eminently horizontal with low-rise, low-rise buildings whose expansion is to the detriment of the surrounding space, which makes urbanization more expensive and makes it difficult to access low-cost housing for populations with fewer resources.”Says the research.
What’s more, Pascuales, Tarqui, Letamendi and Febres Cordero parishes are especially sensitive to the ravages of climate change. The study indicates that in Pascuales there is a significant deforestation rate (17%) and that the percentage of territory under conservation is very low (4.2%). Even Pascuales, excluding Mount Sinai, is the parish with the largest number of sectors with precarious housing.
“This parish presents, in turn, significant levels of risk of flooding (55% of its surface is flooded) and landslide (50% of the territory of the parish presents a risk of landslides) and concentrates in its territory a important number of hot spots (435 in total) ”, indicates the study.
An analysis of sectors such as Mount Sinai is added. It is indicated that this populous area shows “very high percentages of deforestation (87.81%) due to logging for the installation of human settlements.”
It also highlights the sector of Chongón as the largest and most heterogeneous parish in Guayaquil. And that the indicators should be better analyzed, since the growth of the city is going for that area. In this sector, the Municipality promotes the construction of housing estates.
This study, which is part of the LAIF Initiative on Cities and Climate Change and funded by the European Union and implemented by CAF and the French Development Agency, also covered the cities of Portoviejo, Loja and Santa Cruz.
The research highlights that the vulnerability indices presented in Ecuador show that GHG emissions in Portoviejo, Manabía, have been a consequence of the significant urban growth of the city and the demand for greater resources such as water, energy or fuels.
Meanwhile, the vulnerability index of Santa Cruz, Galapagos, shows that the city must achieve a balanced and multidimensional territorial management model due to the “socio-ecosystemic” fragility it suffers.
The Loja study, in the province of the same name, made it possible to detect the sectors most at risk from climate impacts, especially the northwestern and southern sectors, and to identify the 14 main vulnerability challenges of the city. (I)
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