El urbanismo, el uso del suelo y la contaminación ocasionan graves daños a los recursos hídricos. Este libro revisa las causas que originan su deterioro y las herramientas para su gestión y corrección. Le ayudará a comprender sobre el tratamiento idóneo del agua y asegurar su permanencia en el mundo urbano y rural.
"El agua, como fuente de vida para el desarrollo de las funciones sociales, económicas y ambientales, condiciona sin duda el progreso de la ciudad. La alta concentración urbana, el cambio de uso del suelo y la progresiva contaminación someten hoy los recursos hídricos a una fuerte presión, lo que ocasiona insoportables y permanentes escenarios de crisis. La tendencia actual urbana en el uso del agua es sencillamente insostenible, dado el actual modelo de desarrollo urbano, que no contempla las consecuencias del uso indiscriminado de los recursos naturales de su entorno. No es razonable financiar el costo económico, social y ambiental para el abastecimiento de grandes poblaciones con escurrimientos superficiales transportados de otras vertientes, con sobre-explotación y agotamiento de acuíferos o deterioro sin freno de la calidad de las aguas. Para mitigar esta grave situación y hacer posible un aprovechamiento sostenible del agua, es necesario poseer un amplio conocimiento de las causas que originan su escasez y deterioro, así como de los instrumentos de gestión y de las herramientas más adecuadas para corregir el problema. Hay en este documento información valiosa para comprender y ahondar sobre el tratamiento idóneo de los recursos hídricos para asegurar su permanencia en el mundo urbano y rural."--Page 4 of cover.
This book addresses the technical, health, regulatory, and social aspects of ground water withdrawals, water use, and water quality in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, and makes recommendations to improve the balance of water supply, water demand, and water conservation. The study came about through a nongovernmental partnership between the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council and the Mexican Academies of Science and Engineering. The book will contain a Spanish-language translation of the complete English text.
This book may seem a simple accumulation of twenty-one public space projects in eight Latin American cities. On closer inspection, the presentation of project descriptions, photographs, and annotated drawings reflects a concern to analytically explain the operative aspects at work. The publication is not intended to serve only as a catalogue, guide, or manual on how to produce public space in spontaneous settlements. Rather, it goes beyond the aims of an index of best practices. It is intended, instead, as an empirical base for a critical and theoretical engagement with the problematic of development, social inclusion, public investment, (in)formal settlement, civil society and the public sphere. The publication achieves its final function at this third level, by providing a compelling argument to expand the agency of architects and urban designers and creatively find ways of justifying, financing, and building public spaces in communities —spaces that have a catalytic effectiveness in achieving significant urban and social transformation. This book was awarded by a Graham Foundation Grant and CAF Development Bank of Latin America. FEATURED CASE STUDIES: CONSERVATION 72 Linear parks along the Estero Salado | Guayaquil, Ecuador 80 National Park Babil.nia and Chap.u Mangueira | R.o de Janeiro, Brasil 88 Urban agriculture along the Rimac River | Lima, Peru WASTE MANAGEMENT 96 Moravia Ecological Park | Medellin, Colombia 104 Plaza La Cruz, La Palomera | Caracas, Venezuela RISKMANAGEMENT 112 El Guasmo Beach, floodable park | Guayaquil, Ecuador 120 Safety plazas in Santa Mar.a El Triunfo | Lima, Peru 128 Recovery of the Juan Bobo Creek | Medellin, Colombia INFRASTRUCTURE 136 Northeast metrocable parks Comuna 1, La Popular | Medell.n, Colombia 144 Barrio Las Independencias escalators and walkways | Medellin, Colombia 152 Funicular in Dona Marta | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 160 Complexo do Alem.o | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 168 Ecotecnia Urbana Miravalle | Mexico City, Mexico PAVEMENT, PATHS AND THE SPACE SURROUNDING BUILDINGS 176 Pavement, paths and stairs Cerro Santo Doming and Cerro Toro | Valpara.so, Chile 184 Cerro Santa Ana urban rehabilitation | Guayaquil, Ecuador 192 Fernando Botero Library | Medellin, Colombia 200 Moravia Cultural Center | Medellin, Colombia 208 Espa.o Crian.a and community programs | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 216 Plaza in Villa Tranquila | Buenos Aires, Argentina ACTIVITY 224 Casa Kolacho Comuna 13 | Medellin, Colombia 232 AfroReggae Cultural Center | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 240 Alto Per. | Lima, Peru 248 El Calvario Puertas Abiertas | Caracas, Venezuela
La proliferación de huertos urbanos en las ciudades no es un fenómeno circunstancial: responde a una serie de necesidades económicas, urbanísticas, ambientales y sociales que reflejan un cambio profundo en la concepción de la ciudad y en su relación con el entorno agrícola. El presente estudio analiza la situación actual de la agricultura urbana y aporta propuestas metodológicas concretas para introducir el cultivo agrícola en la ciudad y en los edificios. Tras abordar la relación entre agricultura y sostenibilidad, el libro describe la experiencia de algunas ciudades que han introducido con éxito la agricultura en la planificación urbana (Viena, Toronto, La Habana, Rosario, Barcelona y Girona) y proporciona una serie de criterios y estrategias de actuación en los ámbitos del urbanismo y la construcción. Pensado como guía básica para conocer y desarrollar proyectos de agricultura urbana, el libro se dirige a arquitectos, paisajistas y urbanistas, así como a todas aquellas personas interesadas en los huertos urbanos.
In a world facing a growing water crisis, conflicts regarding water sharing and environmental issues are expected to grow, especially in transboundary river basins, where 40% of the world's population lives. This book represents one of the first attempts to bring together methodologies and analytical tools from socio-economic, international policy, engineering, and water management specialists dealing with transboundary water resources. The book is divided into three parts. Part I introduces state--of-the-art concepts in institutional policy and conflict analysis. Part II presents engineering approaches and models for transboundary water management and conflict resolution. Part III analyzes cases in international river basins and enclosed seas.
The Earth as Transformed by Human Action is the culmination of a mammoth undertaking involving the examination of the toll our continual strides forward, technical and social, take on our world. The purpose of such a study is to document the changes in the biosphere that have taken place over the last 300 years, to contrast global patterns of change to those appearing on a regional level, and to explain the major human forces that have driven these changes. The first section deals strictly with the major human forces of the past 300 years and the second is a detailed account of the transformations of the global environment wrought by human action. The final section examines a range of perspectives and theories that purport to explain human actions with regard to the biosphere.
Technocratic Visions examines the context and societal consequences of technologies, technocratic governance, and development in Mexico, home of the first professional engineering school in the Americas. Contributors focus on the influential role of engineers, especially civil engineers, but also mining engineers, military engineers, architects, and other infrastructural and mechanical technicians. During the mid-nineteenth century, a period of immense upheaval and change domestically and globally, troubled governments attempted to expand and modernize Mexico’s engineering programs while resisting foreign invasion and adapting new Western technologies to existing precolonial and colonial foundations. The Mexican Revolution in 1910 greatly expanded technocratic practices as state agents attempted to control popular unrest and unify disparate communities via science, education, and infrastructure. Within this backdrop of political unrest, Technocratic Visions describes engineering sites as places both praised and protested, where personal, local, national, and global interests combined into new forms of societal creation; and as places that became centers of contests over representation, health, identity, and power. With an eye on contextualizing current problems stemming from Mexico’s historical development, this volume reveals how these transformations were uniquely Mexican and thoroughly global.
