Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The configuration of urban household areas has gained relevance from evidence suggesting that the quality of cultural, health, educational or recreational infrastructure in neighborhoods plays a key role in the improvement or deterioration in the conditions of structural disadvantage of certain social groups. From a political perspective, the distribution of urban property is a core element of Welfare Status. Today, likely in response to the functional specialization that prevails in today’s urban centers, this issue has gained a central importance as a strategy to fight urban inequality. This is evidenced in the call of the UN Habitat III initiative to build cities having an adequate network of services and public spaces, aimed at promoting inclusive areas the local inhabitants. The configuration of household areas is a topic deserving investigation in Latin America, as it challenges the concept of the city as a place where human needs are resolved. In Chile, a survey on urban quality of life conducted by the government reveals data showing gaps in urban infrastructure across household areas of different socioeconomic levels, as well as low levels of use and appreciation of cultural and recreational areas available in neighborhoods. In this regard, 71% of respondents to the urban quality of life survey conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development in 2010 evidences that the deficit of green areas is a serious issue in the city. At the same time, 51.3% points to a nil or virtually nil use of parks and squares in their cities. These data document that we have learned to build cities fitted to resist earthquakes, at the expense of neglecting the physical and emotional well-being of the inhabitants. By focusing on reducing the housing deficit, we have disregarded the development of socially homogeneous neighborhoods with poor infrastructure. The Chilean policy on urban development has established the need to advance urban planning and management tools under spatial fairness criteria. The National Council for Urban Development has proposed a system of urban indicators and standards that seek to monitor the development of the Chilean city. However, this challenge demands methodologies for a precise diagnosis of those urban areas with the highest deficit in terms of infrastructure and services. With the city of Viña del Mar as a study case, we developed a methodology for the identification of urban deserts (MIDU) to assesses the distance of each block to a set of urban equipment considered basic (squares, gymnasiums, libraries, health care centers, schools, supermarkets) using the spatial analysis ARCGIS, in three household areas across the city (Miraflores Alto-Miraflores Bajo; Forestal; and Población Vergara). The aspects investigated were potential differences in accessibility to urban infrastructure between neighborhoods of different socioeconomic level; percentage of blocks located beyond the maximum distances to urban infrastructure resources recommended in literature guidelines; types of infrastructure resources with the best/worst accessibility levels in the areas studied.For Miraflores Alto and Forestal, the analysis shows an intensive urbanization pattern regarding housing but deficient in cultural and recreational resources. There is an emerging urbanization model that disengages the basic urban structure (population, services, mobility), favoring single-function housing schemes that minimize the role of proximity infrastructure in meeting everyday human needs. This represents a partial reasoning regarding urban development, exacerbated by informal urbanization processes at the metropolitan edges.In a scenario where urban management requires objective diagnostic tools, the MIDU methodology allows a detailed analysis of the supply of urban infrastructure in household areas, identifying with precision the existence of infrastructure "deserts" in specific areas of the city. The analysis derived from the MIDU methodology is a basic input for the development of urban investment plans under a social redistribution criterium. In this sense, the improvement the impact of policies dealing with healthcare, sports, public libraries or recycling, starts by acknowledging the neighborhood as the first scale for implementation and measurement of these initiatives. More than a matter of urban design, this directly impacts on the permeation of social policies, i.e., in the ability of policies to be linked and influence the organization of the daily life of local inhabitants. The Chilean city will be more inclusive when no girl or elderly adult live beyond a ten-minute  walk from a playground or library. The democratization of the urban quality of life starts by building significant places in the citizen’s everyday environment.

Water is a key driver of development, since the well-being of societies are entirely dependent on the use of this resource. Since the availability of freshwater in the world is often limited in quality and quantity, a sustainable and balanced harmonization of the multiple uses of water is a complex task, considering the varied and different types of social, economic, political and environmental interests that unavoidably compete with each other given the limited availability of the resource.For its part, mining is one of the key drivers of the economy; on the one hand, it is a major job-creating activity which translates into regional economic development and, on the other, mining is highly predatory on the ecological environment in the territory where it operates, and regularly requires extensive environmental mitigation works.Ore concentration methods are multiple, according to the mineral mined; those dealing with  metallic mining often produce enormous amounts of pollutants, as they involve the use of high concentrations of catalysts diluted in large volumes of water.  These require large containment structures during the ore refining stages and the final disposal of non-usable wastes, called Tailings Dams.The challenge in the near future is to conduct this operation while ensuring environmental sustainability through Integrated Water Management, involving the coordinated management of all uses, demands by and needs of the different social, economic, environmental and political stakeholders. A first step would be issuing a solid diagnosis of the state of conservation and operation of mining facilities both operating and out of operation.This is a complex task, given the poor supervision of government agencies in charge, the lack of a reliable public cadastre of these facilities, and the difficulty involved in gathering on-site data due to the restrictions imposed by private operating companies. The use of Remote Sensing to establish the geographic location of these mining facilities, in addition to offering advantages versus traditional methods, may be the only viable alternative for this purpose in some cases.Aimed at the development of this diagnosis, this exploratory work developed the "J-Index" methodology that uses Remote Sensing for the preliminary location of tailings dams and currently operating and out-of-operation copper mining facilities; the primary objective is to facilitate its implementation by using current technologies that are broadly available, low-cost, quick, and easy to use; moreover, these should mitigate to some extent the constraints regarding resources, time and ease of access to the areas studied for monitoring the operation of such facilities.The study area is located in the northwestern part of the State of Sonora. This includes the high portions of the Rio Sonora basin, a traditionally important mining area where the largest copper mine in Mexico is sited, and where the mining waste spill occurred in August 2014.The construction and validation of the J-Index used photo interpretation of satellite images obtained from the Internet at Google Earth; the use of the Normalized Difference Water Index obtained from free images of the Sentinel-2 satellite of the European Space Agency; the list of the major mines currently operating or projected elaborated by the Mexican Geological Service obtained free of charge through the National Platform of Transparency; the list of users of underground sources developed by the Public Register of Water Rights obtained from the National Water Commission website; and the public software for analysis of Geographic Information Systems called Quantum GIS.Its application in the northeastern part of the State of Sonora allowed validating its effectiveness in locating all the tailings dams and open-pit excavations of the known copper mines; also identified were areas corresponding to natural dams or lagoons not previously identified, with spectral characteristics similar to those of tailings dams and/or mining excavations. This will allow a more accurate focus in the additional field evaluations by both the relevant authorities and the mining companies themselves, to determine in greater detail the operating conditions, maintenance, and preventive and corrective measures, as applicable, to ensure a correct operation.The reapplication of this methodology in other parts of the world will allow the identification of potential mining facilities, both currently operating or out of operation, that may involve  potential hazards related to operation failure and their effects on the ecosystem.

Desde un punto de vista operativo, los estudios combinan el inventario y la cartografía de los paisajes, con el uso de indicadores para evaluar de manera precisa y sistemática todos aquellos aspectos que definen su calidad como recurso para el turismo (Serrano, 2008; Nogué et al., 2009). Durante el proceso de identificación de paisajes, una vez caracterizada y cartografiada la información obtenida en gabinete, el trabajo de campo permite corroborar su veracidad sobre el terreno, así como interpretar el significado de los distintos componentes ambientales respecto al paisaje, otorgando mayor rigor al estudio desde una perspectiva científica (Sánchez y Godoy, 2002; Godoy y Sánchez, 2007).Además, el trabajo de campo se constituye como una vía principal para la valoración del potencial de las unidades de paisaje, y sobre todo de los llamados “atractivos turísticos”, es decir, los lugares que son particularmente adecuados para el desarrollo de la actividad. El trabajo de campo permite aprehender la integración de los distintos aspectos del ambiente que intervienen en paisaje, y sus atributos o características visuales, favoreciendo la determinación de aquellos aspectos que contribuyen con más fuerza a la definición de su potencial con fines turísticos (Zuluaga, 2006; Nogué et al., 2009).

Este trabajo tiene como finalidad revelar la estructura territorial del turismo en Santiago, Nuevo León, municipio perteneciente a la zona metropolitana de Monterrey. Se explica, desde un punto de vista geográfico, el arreglo y articulación del turismo en el territorio, para ello se alude a la distribución de los recursos naturales y culturales, así como de la infraestructura y servicios que atienden a esta actividad económica, y se examina la procedencia geográfica de los visitantes, que transitan por distintos canales de comunicación hacia Santiago. Los resultados indican que la demarcación municipal posee una diversidad de recursos, en particular de índole natural, que soportan su promoción como destino turístico, sin embargo, el crecimiento del turismo en esta localidad depende, en gran medida, de lo que acontece en la ciudad de Monterrey, lugar de pernocta de una proporción importante de los visitantes que llegan a Santiago y desde donde se promociona la llegada de turistas a esta localidad. Se trata pues de un ejemplo de destino turístico supeditado a una gran metrópoli en términos de accesibilidad, servicios y conectividad. 

Irregular communities established in the border of large cities usually have high levels of vulnerability and in some cases, the exposure to natural and man-made hazards result in great damage to these populations. Valle de Chalco Solidaridad (VCS) is an example of this kind of communities. VCS is a municipality in the State of Mexico, Mexico, located in the old Chalco Lake to eastern of Mexico City. The natural environment of VCS has been dramatically modified because of the overexploitation of the local aquifer that has caused subsidence in most of its territory.Floods are also common in VCS, mainly associated to failures of the walls of the local wastewater canal called “La Compañía” (LCC) causing severe damage to the local population. Thus, the most common local hazards are subsidence and flooding although because of its geographical location, VCS is also prone to the impact of large earthquakes from the Mexican subduction zone.  LCC was an open-air sewage canal that collects domestic water from two municipalities in the State of Mexico: Valle de Chalco Solidaridad and Chalco. At present, LCC is a piped sewage canal. On 2000, 2005, and 2010, districts of VCS were severely damaged due to failures of LCC. The objective of this study is to estimate the levels of vulnerability and risk to floods of VCS. To complete our work, we also considered the vulnerability and risk to earthquakes and subsidence. Our research was constrained to the communities of El Triunfo, San Isidro, and Avandaro by considering independent assessments of the social, economic and structural vulnerabilities as well as of the global vulnerability. We adapted the Community Vulnerability Assessment Tool (CVAT) developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to estimate vulnerability. Data for our research was collected from field works on March-April 2010, and from scientific and governmental sources. In our study we considered global vulnerability as the average of the social, economic and structural vulnerabilities. The spatial distributions of each studied vulnerability was represented in a Geographic Information System (GIS) considering five levels of vulnerability: very low, low, moderate, high and very high.For the social vulnerability we evaluated aspects like communication among neighbors, social characteristics of the population such as age, disability and education level. For the economic vulnerability we considered elements like income, economical dependence and main economic activity of the family. For the structural vulnerability we took into account construction material, structural reinforcements, geometry of construction, number of stories, among other factors. The spatial distribution of risk was determined superposing the local GIS flood, seismic, and subsidence hazard-map layers over the global vulnerability map. Risk was characterized by using the same five levels of vulnerability. These risk maps allow us to identify those priority areas to implement mitigation actions.Our methodology can be considered as a first approximation of risk and provides a qualitative tool to support civil protection authorities to develop a disaster prevention program as well as to implement public policies for risk mitigation. Our results indicate that the majority of the population of VCS has moderate and high levels of social vulnerability and that practically all territory has high and very-high economic vulnerability. Most households in the study area have moderate and high level of structural vulnerability. About one third of the studied population is in high and very high risk to flooding. Seismic and subsidence risks are moderate and high, respectively.Small areas have moderate global vulnerability. High and very high flood risk is constrained to those families located near the high-risk flooding areas. The factors that were identified that increase vulnerability in VCS are: 1) Lack of knowledge about the existing levels of local hazards; 2) Poor structural housing conditions; 3) Failures of LCC’s infrastructure; and 4) High exposure of vulnerable people.Our methodology allows determining the spatial distribution of vulnerability and risk. However, for a complete analysis, it is necessary additional studies to assess those factors that condition the social construction of risk.  The results of this work identify those areas where mitigation measures are needed and provide the basis for decision makers to implement risk reduction actions in VCS. We also believe in the need for developing a program to reduce structural vulnerability to both, earthquakes and floods. For the urban development planning of VCS, subsidence and earthquake risks should also be taken into account. Thus, the development of public policies for risk prevention and mitigation are also required.