Building Urban Water Resilience: New Perspectives for the Guadalajara Drought-Readiness Program

Abstract

Climate change is compelling cities to become resilient in the face of a wider range of meteorological phenomena. Starting with approaches to cope with hurricanes or floods, resilient city strategies have to consider longer-term and more territorially expansive challenges, such as multiannual and multi-regional droughts. Urban planners, local and regional governments, and political consultants are therefore driven to consider more complex models to build resilient cities. One example is the case of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico’s second largest city and which was recently included in the 100 Resilient Cities network. The city obtained a drought management program from the federal government in 2015, but such efforts have not yet been coordinated with current public policy or with the rapid growth of the city. This article explores a more comprehensive proposal of public policy to deal with a big city’s water supply and expected shortages. It combines elements from the Resilience Alliance methodology and the Transition to Urban Water Services of Tomorrow (TRUST) Program funded by the European Union.

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