Author(s)

JOEL F. AUDEFROY, EDITH MONTESINOS PEDRO

Abstract

Acapulco, a coastal city facing the Pacific Ocean in Mexico, has a particular geographic configuration and exposure to major hydrometeorological and geological risks. The existence of formal and informal constructions differentiates vulnerabilities. The objective of this work is to show that housing is not vulnerable to all types of risks and that it is necessary to differentiate the vulnerability of the habitat to earthquakes from the vulnerability to hurricanes and floods. Different indicators allow to specify the different vulnerabilities: marginalization, poverty, type of soil, location and types of construction materials. The method used is a comparative analysis of urban vulnerability based on the Risk Atlas and Development Plans. Geological risks such as earthquakes are recurrent in the Municipality of Acapulco; some 4,729 seismic events have been recorded since 1900 to date, and in the period 1949– 2017 some 44 hurricanes and tropical storms affected the city. On the other hand, the growth of the city from the 1960s onwards increased without any real urban planning, except for that which favoured the tourist infrastructure. This work shows that disasters have been built little by little through urban decisions and development plans to reach catastrophic situations such as the recent hurricane Otis.

Keywords

vulnerability, risk, marginalization, disasters, Acapulco