Abstract
Abstract Thousands of poor, marginal communities’ residents die due to landslide events every year. The quick urbanization of mountainous areas, combined with an increased frequency of landslide events induced by heavy rains due to climate change, is leading to increased deaths year after year, and the problem will only get worse. Landscape Architects, trained to analyze and intervene in situations with complex natural and social territorial dynamics, are in position to make positive contributions to mitigating risks in such situations. A collaborative effort between a team of landscape architects from Germany and Urbanists in Medellín Colombia is carrying out a four-phased research and implementation proposal to anticipate and mitigate risk in low-income settlements on Medellín's urban periphery. They propose five pilot projects to test risk mitigation strategies through monitoring and early warning systems, drainage improvements, urban agriculture, slope forestation, and developing sites with the supplied services.
Highlights
The quick urbanization of mountainous areas, combined with an increased frequency of landslide events induced by heavy rains due to climate change, is leading to increased deaths year after year, and the problem will only get worse
A collaborative effort between a team of landscape architects from Germany and Urbanists in Medellín Colombia is carrying out a four-phased research and implementation proposal to anticipate and mitigate risk in low-income settlements on Medellín’s urban periphery
During public forum hosted by Medellin’s EAFIT University in 2013, numerous academics, political leaders, urban planners, and architects discussed the merits and challenges of a bold new project proposal for Medellins urban periphery, a steep, landslide prone, and economically impoverished zone known as ladera
Summary
During public forum hosted by Medellin’s EAFIT University in 2013, numerous academics, political leaders, urban planners, and architects discussed the merits and challenges of a bold new project proposal for Medellins urban periphery, a steep, landslide prone, and economically impoverished zone known as ladera. All of these were at play in Medellin’s complex periphery, and had to be considered by a civic administration actively exploring new approaches to reduce social and physical vulnerability in non-formal settlements (Figure 1) It is in this context that an interdisciplinary team, co-directed by Alejandro Echeverri, head of EAFIT University’s Center for Urban and Environmental Studies (Urbam) and a team directed by Christian Werthmann with the Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany, with funding support from the City of Medellin, embarked upon a multi-phased research project to find and test innovative, community-based strategies to address the risk and ecology pressing issues in these peripheral neighborhoods. In this phase, the goal was to look closely at specific communities in terms of local territorial and social dynamics in order to define and develop specific strategies to address non-formal settlement growth in unsafe areas by offering more sustainable alternatives to current practices of relocation from a social, environmental, and economic perspective. Table 1. font and titles can be adjusted to match publication
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