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Mercy J. Borbor-Cordova, Ph.D
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Climatic Resilience for Duran: RESCLIMA

Duran is a coastal city located in the delta of the Guayas Estuary in Ecuador in which 97.9% of its population (250.000 inhabitants) live in urban areas. This medium size city has suffered a rapid unplanned urbanization that have exacerbate floodings.
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Mercy Borbor-Cordova
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Flooding a recurrent climate event


Latin America cities are recurrently impacted by climate variability and change. In this context, urban health outcomes emerge as a consequence of complex interactions among the political, ecological and built environment, socio-economic development, and disaster risk reduction as a crosscutting service. In this paper, we present the results of collaboration between the municipal government of Duran and research institutions to identify strategies for resilience to reduce the impacts of flooding in Duran, a coastal city of 250,000 inhabitants in Ecuador. We applied the IPCC risk and vulnerability framework and a technological tool (RESCLIMA) to map the urban sectors and risk factors at the census track scale in order to characterize vulnerable populations. We found that the most impacted populations resided in informal settlements, young families and children with no access to piped water and sanitation infrastructure, and no urban runoff management.
Duran is endemic for arboviruses and other tropical infectious diseases, thus exposure to annual flooding and extreme flooding during El Niño events may increase the risk of vector- and water-borne disease outbreaks. We identified the opportunity for city stakeholders to better understand the urban determinants of health through interactions with the science community, the urban planning and disaster risk management offices, and the public health department.

The RESCLIMA initiative and the Sustainable Development Goals

Latin America’s major coastal cities are becoming more densely populated and growing at accelerated rates; this phenomenon is leading to unstructured periurban development which reduces the ability of cities to protect themselves from recurring and major flooding events [
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The Climate Resilience Initiative for Cities contribute to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 11 and 13 of sustainable cities and communities, and climate actions, respectively, yet require an interdisciplinary framework that includes an understanding of the social vulnerability, city economy, the ecological services of the urban ecosystems and city governance around climate hazards [
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Goal 13 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs
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Sustainable Development Goal 3 - Wikipedia
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Goal 11 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs
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Flooding in Coastal and Estuarine Cities

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), extreme flooding events will increase in intensity and frequency, leading to impacts on the human health, community property, and economic productivity of cities [
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]. At the heart of flood impact is the vulnerability of urban systems, which is based on climate, ecosystem, socio-economic, institutional and cultural factors. Considering that the region is exposed to extreme events such as El Niño and climate change it is necessary to assess the vulnerability of cities to climate events in the region.
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Vulnerability of the city to flooding

The IPCC defines vulnerability to climate change as the: “Level at which a system is susceptible, or unable to withstand, the adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extreme phenomena. Vulnerability is based on the nature, magnitude and speed of the climate variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptability” [
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]. The current state of the art for studying urban flooding is shifting from flood protection and management to disaster risk reduction and city resilience.

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