Climate Risk Before and After Hurricane Maria: The Case of San Juan, Puerto Rico

• In Event: 4165 - Latinas/os and Natural and Social Disasters

Abstract

A proposal by the US Army Corps of Engineers to channelize sections of the Rio Piedras watershed in San Juan, Puerto Rico has shed light on alternative risk management strategies. Top down, technical or engineered solutions to deal with flood control such as channelization are increasingly unaffordable. Our interest is to explore how community leaders’ frame the concept of risk, particularly due to flooding, and solutions within the context of Hurricane Maria and the current financial crisis in Puerto Rico. The Rio Piedras watershed is of particular interest given its high population density and its history of interventions that led to the burial of river segments with cement canals.

We are in the process of interviewing community leaders to assess the broader idea of what makes San Juan livable, and the role that flooding risk management plays in defining livability. Their perception of bottom-up approaches for flood control, including the role of green infrastructure, is of particular interest given the infeasibility of current engineered measures and their history of short term local coping strategies. We frame the research using hygienic versus green city imaginaries to explore to what extent community leaders adhere to hygienic visions of the city or advocate transitioning towards strategies more closely aligned with ecological processes and functions. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, we were in the process of conducting in-person interviews with community leaders in the San Juan area; we conducted eight interviews, and are in the process of conducting an additional eighteen post-hurricane interviews with community leaders. Research results will help inform current efforts to engage communities in thinking about alternative solutions to channelization and other urban flood management measures.

Author

• David Flores, USDA Forest Service