Sustainability Transition in a Vulnerable River Basin in Mexico

Abstract

This chapter examines a transition process in a river basin in the central part of Mexico that is highly affected by climate change, social deterioration and the drugs war. The Yautepec River Basin is particularly prone to climate impacts because of its abrupt slopes, numerous affluents, and high population density in its floodplain, which is frequently exposed to hurricane impacts. Taking into account laissez-faire policies, illegality, government corruption, and public insecurity in a region with high levels of dual vulnerability (environmental and social), as well as subject to hazard impacts, the chapter reviews the constraints of the process of transition towards sustainability, especially when the goals of the people and of the government are not identical. People organized themselves regionally in order to simultaneously increase public security and freedom from hazard impacts, which both directly affect life and livelihood. Using original survey data, the study examines the risks perceived by the people and the ways in which they reduce these risks of extreme events, as well as how they cooperate with the authorities to improve environmental conditions, to enhance disaster risk reduction activities and to reduce the impact of criminal acts. The transition process requires the integration of numerous social, economic, political, environmental, judicial, cultural and mental factors in order to develop processes and resilience from the bottom up to deal with this complex emergency, as well as to force the different levels of government to enhance all four aspects of the human security of the people: ‘freedom from fear’, ‘freedom from want’ ‘freedom from hazard impacts’, and ‘freedom to live in dignity’.