Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires. Between Geographical Imaginaries, Environmental Conflicts and Public Policies

Abstract

The greater frequency and intensity of extreme hydrometeorological events, attributed to climate change and the proliferation of inappropriate forms of urbanization in low-lying areas of the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires, have amplified the destructive power of floods. This placed on the public agenda the controversial ways in which these lands and wetlands are incorporated into the urban fabric. Based on the postulates of environmentalism and Disaster Risk Reduction in the face of climate change derived from the Sendai Framework, wetlands have gained a new notoriety. We consider that this repositioning is due to a series of interrelated processes: 1) changes in geographic imaginaries, in which the network of meaning gives value to goods and services provided by these ecosystems; 2) the emergence of environmental conflicts derived by the opposition of interests, visions and actions between the different social actors that participate in its urbanization and in the type of use granted to these lands, and 3) the elaboration of public policies tending both to the conservation of wetlands and the development of mitigation and adaptation measures to climate change under the paradigm of ecological modernization. From a critical point of view, this work seeks to describe and analyze the three processes mentioned above, as well as to propose possible research lines regarding the development of technocratic solutions based on nature that favor new forms of commodification; the implications of incipient policies in this matter and the role that the lowest-income groups play in this scenario.