Preventive Resettlement of Populations at Risk of Disaster - GFDRR

Chapter 3: Argentina
Response to Recurrent Floods:
Assisted Self-Construction Housing Program
By Rómulo Pérez and Ignacio Zelmeister
A. Country Context and Disaster Risk Management 1
The Argentine Republic is located in the southernmost
part of South America and covers an area of 3,761,274
km²; of which 2,791,810 km² pertain to the Americas
and 969,464 km² are part of Antarctica. 2 The country is
divided into seven regions, as shown in Map 3.1. and
has 23 provinces and the autonomous city of Buenos
Aires, the capital.
Map 3.1. Regions and Provinces
1. Population and Urbanization
As of July 2009, the total population was estimated at
40,913,584 (CIA World Fact book), an increase of nearly
six million over the official figure obtained in the last
demographic and household census conducted by the
national Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Instituto
Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos, INDEC) in 2001.
Historically, urbanization has been continuous, but
quickened in the past 50 years. As Figure 3.1 shows, in
2001 nearly 89 percent of the Argentine population was
in cities; by 2010, the number was estimated to have increased
to 92 percent. This makes Argentina one of the
most urbanized countries in the world.
NORTHEAST
NORTH
CUYO
In Argentina, urban centers at the national and regional
levels, and especially in the provinces, respond to a
monocentric primacy system. The Metropolitan Area
of Buenos Aires, with almost 13 million inhabitants, is
10 times larger than the urban agglomeration 3 areas of
Rosario and Córdoba and contains 15 times the population
of Mendoza, the city with the next largest population.
In the provinces, one city (usually the provincial
capital) accounts for a high percentage of the total and
urban population of that province, and it normally has a
larger population than the next largest cities.
CENTRAL
LITTORAL
BUENOS AIRES
PATAGONIA
RIVERS
PROVINCE BOUNDARIES
INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARIES
Source: Instituto Geográfico Militar (IGM) y Dirección Nacional de
Protección Civil.
The urbanization process in Argentina was poorly
planned. In the past 50 years, cities have doubled or tripled
in population and have taken over land using both
formal and informal mechanisms, fostering real estate
speculation (in the first case), and exploiting the very
1
This section is based on a paper by Rómulo Pérez, which was summarized and adapted for this publication.
2
This area includes the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) and the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, which are administered by the
United Kingdom and are claimed by Argentina.
3
The “agglomerates” are urban structures covering more than two political-institutional jurisdictions, whether adjacent or not.
Chapter 3 Response to Recurrent Floods: Assisted Self-Construction Housing Program | Argentina | 25