Claudia E. Natenzon

The Case of Argentina

This chapter presents the results of mapping industrial risk in Argentina and explains the empirical procedures followed to obtain the maps. The chapter is divided into three parts: The first part provides background information about industrial hazardousness in Argentina, while the second one studies the distribution of risk in the country, using the department or municipality as the unit of analysis. The third part presents a case study of the region with the highest concentration of departments/municipalities at high risk: the MABA (Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires) using the census block group as the unit of analysis. The chapter also explores qualitatively situations of “environmental injustice” and notes that the conclusions regarding the correlation between vulnerability and environmental hazard in the case study differ from those obtained at national level. When the unit of analysis is census block group the spatial distribution suggests an inverse relationship between vulnerability and environmental hazard, where the risk gradient decreases with distance from the city of Buenos Aires as the social gradient of vulnerability increases. Although more detailed studies are required, this result suggests the need to develop indicators including different geographical units of analysis to examine local changes in the distribution of hazard trends.

Contaminación del aire en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: el riesgo de hoy o el cambio climático futuro, una falsa opción

Based on the theoretical framework of environmental risk, this article discusses the management of air quality in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires in relation to current and potential impacts of toxic gases and global climate change on the health of the population. Information on historical and current management of the air was linked to the results of the South American Emissions, Megacities and Climate research project to assess danger, exposure, vulnerability and uncertainty as the dimensions of risk. By contextualizing public policies developed in recent decades on this subject, it was possible to identify emerging configurations of risk and uncertainties as accelerators of social vulnerability. On the one hand, the fact that there is a positive correlation between mortality, changes in temperature and air pollution was confirmed. On the other hand, it became clear that there is a disconnect between air quality management and health care management, while limitations were found in the proposed mitigation measures relating to emissions of greenhouse gases produced by fuel, revealing uncertainties regarding their efficacy.

Evaluating the Firm’s Environmental Risk: A Conceptual Framework

This chapter is organised into three sections. The first two sections outline the conceptual framework and the empirical procedure used in this project to evaluate the environmental risk generated by the firm. Risk is defined as the result of combining potential hazard, vulnerability and exposure. The framework suggests that the gap separating real – or managed – risk and potential – or evaluated – risk widens with less uncertainty and greater governability. The third section provides a description of the governability of environmental impact in Latin America, where the divide between real and potential risk is low, and where, therefore, methodologies that evaluate potential risk may also be appropriate for interpreting the extent to which evaluated risk is being managed.

Business and Environmental Risks

Based on detailed research funded across two continents and involving universities in Argentina, Spain and the UK, this book sets out an innovative, multidisciplinary approach to assessing both environmental and social risks in a given territorial area. Using data from a number of Ibero-American nations, the study combines environmental, socio-economic and geographic factors to construct a set of spatial and technical indicators that measure the social vulnerability and industrial hazardousness of a defined area. Aggregating these indicators in a geographic information system (GIS) allows researchers to assess the potential risk to which a certain area and its population are subject as a result of the environmental deterioration caused by co-located industrial activity.

Challenges of Cross-Border Collaboration: Knowledge Networks for Innovation and Sustainability in the Global South

Despite many efforts to describe and characterize collaborative research on complex problems, conditions for success are not yet rigorously grounded on actual cases (Podesta et~al. Environmental Science & Policy, 26, 40–48, 2012). To compensate this lack of empirical work on specific cases, the chapter describes insights gained during a study of collaboration in three international (US-Argentina) climate variability research projects where the authors were co-investigators. Conclusions arisen which illustrate the relevance of connectivity that foster or impede collaborative production of high-quality, useable knowledge, should be an essential component of projects involving scientists, practitioners and stakeholders. Mostly as they include participants with different nationalities and backgrounds who must collectively define a new set of shared principles, concepts and aims. Monitoring and reflection must also implicate institutions (planning and funding agencies, universities, research institutes, GOs and NGOs, etc.) which are currently rehearsing their first steps in such a complex type of collaboration. The chapter present observations from various stages of the projects and extract lessons that will contribute both to design “best practices” and metrics of success in different collaborative settings and to expose some underlying assumptions about how collaboration processes occur, one of the goals of this special volume.

Vulnerabilidade socioambiental, inundações e repercussões na Saúde em regiões periféricas: o caso de Alagoas, Brasil

The scope of this article is to analyze the social and environmental vulnerability of the population affected by disasters adopting the floods that occurred in the State of Alagoas in 2010 as a case study. For this, research was conducted in the Scielo and Medline databases as well as books, dissertations and theses. In addition, newspaper articles published in the local and national press about these floods were located and examined. A visit was made to some of the individuals who were affected by the flood and subsequently housed in the Santa Fe Prison Colony located in the municipality of Uniao dos Palmares in the State of Alagoas. Among other aspects, the vulnerability is a consequence of the precarious living conditions of this population. However, even among the vulnerable there are some groups that are even more vulnerable without any possibility of changing a situation of chronic repetition of the disaster, perpetuating the vicious cycle of poverty and precarious living conditions.

Statistical Information for the Analysis of Social Vulnerability in Latin America – Comparison with Spain

This chapter shows the results obtained in the search for empirical information on social aspects in Latin America relating to social vulnerability on a national scale. It also puts forward the reasoning behind this methodological approach, the procedures employed in the search and the problems encountered, establishing where possible a comparison with the Spanish case. It shows the results obtained in the selection of indicators and in the data corresponding to each of them for the vast majority of Latin American countries, and it compares the available indicators in Spain and Argentina covering the dimensions and the representative variables of different conditions of social vulnerability.

What do we one the future? the construction of a better present

The debt-to-the-future issue is discussed taking into account that it is not simply a poetic or innocent statement but a present complex problem. An analytical approach through the issue of risk and uncertainty might allow us to delimit our reflection. At the same time, it might become the main axis in the reality we face today, since risk, reliability, and uncertainty appear as characteristic features of modern society. Participatory processes, as manifestations of post-normal science, are proposed as a way to cope with uncertainty.